0:00

Hey everybody , I just want to welcome you to the

0:02

Off the Stool podcast . Today's

0:05

guest is amazing . I

0:07

just wanted to do a real quick

0:09

. We are not affiliated with any 12-step

0:12

organization , rehab facility

0:14

or anything like that . We are not psychiatrists

0:17

or just a bunch of you

0:19

know people who used to have a problem with the

0:21

too much . You know wanting too much

0:23

. So you know that's

0:25

what we're here for . We're here to share our experience

0:27

, strength and hope . All right , I hope you enjoy

0:29

the show and

0:42

we're live .

0:48

Wow , I guess it's apropos that I appear

0:50

as a guest on one before I start

0:52

my own .

0:55

Yes , it's a lot of fun

0:57

. I got to tell you the

1:00

stuff that you learn and the stuff that you figure

1:03

out when you do these types of

1:05

things . You know , when you do a podcast is

1:07

a lot of fun and it's

1:09

really really interesting , especially

1:11

, you know , getting to

1:13

know people on a more intimate

1:15

level .

1:18

Oh and look , I

1:21

do have some technical gear here besides this

1:23

wonderful little thing here , but we're gonna

1:25

try it with this and , you know , maybe one

1:27

day I'll grow up and use this one here

1:29

. So

1:35

, all right , where do you want to start

1:37

?

1:37

Let's start at the beginning . That's always my favorite

1:40

part .

1:41

Beginning ? Well , there's two beginnings

1:43

.

1:45

Oh , I'm talking about the beginning .

1:48

Where did it all start for Sharon ?

1:50

The beginning yeah , where

1:52

did it all start for you ?

1:53

Where did it start for Sharon ? Let's

1:56

see , I

2:00

grew up in New York and I had

2:02

a what I thought was a pretty functional family

2:04

until we moved to Arizona when I was 14

2:07

and then someone took the wheels off

2:09

the car and you know I got to

2:11

see all the cracks

2:13

in the foundation of the family . And

2:16

so I grew up in New York and

2:18

all of my family proceeded

2:20

to move to Florida and then

2:23

my dad's company had a choice of us

2:25

staying in New York and moving to Arizona . So

2:27

we moved to Arizona and I was 15 , 14

2:30

, 15 years old when that

2:32

happened and , being

2:35

a Long Island kid , you know , I

2:37

was used to , you know , the more rapid

2:39

pace of New York , even though Long Island was

2:42

slow compared to the city and stuff like that

2:44

. I referred to

2:46

Arizona as a one horse town

2:48

and you

2:50

know you went to McDonald's and you waited 10

2:53

minutes for your breakfast , you

2:55

know , and so it was just kind of like huh

2:58

, you know , and I was used to traveling

3:00

up and down the eastern seaboard so you never waited

3:02

for your breakfast because you know everything

3:04

moves faster out there . So

3:07

, with my family , my

3:09

father started drinking more , my mother started

3:11

drinking more and my mom came from

3:13

an alcoholic family . My

3:16

grandfather died I think

3:18

I was about 12 years old , from

3:20

his alcoholism . He

3:22

was supposed to be going to court to

3:24

lose his license for you know

3:27

however many DUIs he had gotten , made

3:29

a wrong turn and pulled into an orange grove

3:31

in Florida and then , instead of

3:34

getting out and walking to the road

3:36

because his car got stuck , instead

3:38

of getting out and walking to the road , he

3:41

put a note

3:43

on a house and said he was going to

3:45

wait by his car and proceeded to die of dehydration

3:47

instead of dealing with , you know , what

3:49

was going on around him , and

3:52

so you know , I know I remember

3:54

watching the abuse that happened when we visited

3:56

my grandparents and stuff like that , and

3:58

so my mom didn't take the death too well

4:00

, and then we came out here and the fracture started happening

4:03

in my parents' marriage , and so you know

4:05

I watched them drink and because

4:07

they weren't paying attention , you know it was

4:09

like well , you know , I grew up with all these people

4:12

drinking , you know , and most of my

4:14

parents our family on the other side

4:16

were pretty normal from what I could tell . So

4:20

you know I was allowed

4:23

to drink as a teenager . I mean it's like oh

4:25

, you want a glass of wine with dinner , have a glass of wine with dinner

4:27

. And it wasn't until

4:29

I was about 16 years old that I had my first

4:31

blackout and

4:34

really ruined Southern comfort for me . I

4:36

could never have eggnog at holidays times

4:38

again because I could not tolerate

4:41

Southern comfort . That just you know . So

4:43

at 16 , I'd already ruined the family recipe

4:45

for , you know , holiday eggnog

4:48

and , you know , proceeded

4:50

to , you know , drink not

4:52

heavily through high school

4:55

, you know , but it

4:59

became heavier , you know , as each

5:01

year progressed I drank more

5:04

. But what I didn't like

5:06

was that I was a blackout drinker . I

5:08

couldn't just have a couple of drinks where my

5:10

friends , you know , like I'd have friends

5:12

who were like , okay , well , if we drink this

5:14

with water , you know , we have one glass

5:17

of this and one glass of water , we would be fine

5:19

and we won't have hangovers in the morning . And

5:21

so I would drink one glass of this

5:23

, whatever the drink de jure was , and

5:26

the glass of water , and then be constantly

5:28

peeing and I would proceed

5:30

to be blacked out and

5:34

not remember the night and everybody else seemed

5:36

to , you know , remember the night , and then they would

5:38

have to be responsible for

5:43

sharing . And then , you know , I left my first year

5:45

of college because you know of

5:47

the dysfunction that I actually happened

5:49

to be in , and packed up

5:51

my stuff and moved out to California because I thought

5:53

that would be better , found a boyfriend

5:55

and convinced myself that I was in love

5:57

with him and moved out there and

6:00

proceeded to ruin that relationship with my drinking

6:02

. And then

6:07

, let's see

6:09

, then I found myself in situations

6:11

where bad things happened because

6:14

I was not listening to the inner

6:16

voices and was hanging

6:18

out with the wrong people and just procedurally

6:20

, you know , got left at a bar by

6:22

my friends who had my purse and I would

6:24

have to walk home , you know , drunken

6:27

, in the middle of the night , and , you know , hopefully some stranger

6:29

would take me home and not take advantage of

6:31

me or do something terrible . And

6:33

that wasn't enough , you know , that wasn't enough of a lesson

6:36

, you know , and shit just kept happening

6:38

to me . You know , it was just pretty traumatic

6:40

. And then I kept

6:44

. Evidently my higher power kept putting interesting

6:46

people in my life . So I got

6:48

something bad happened

6:50

and one of my

6:53

people I shared an office

6:55

building with they figured out something was wrong with

6:57

me and decided

7:00

that I couldn't live where I was living anymore because

7:02

it wasn't safe , and

7:04

so

7:07

I stopped drinking for a while with them and

7:10

so it was pretty

7:12

much dry . And you know

7:14

, we started doing lots of outdoor activities

7:16

and things like that . And then

7:19

one day we were invited to a party , and

7:21

I don't know how much wine

7:24

I have , but I was pretty euphoric and just

7:26

said , you know what , I would be perfectly happy if

7:28

I could just stay like this forever . You

7:30

know , that very edge between complete

7:32

oblivion , and you know , I just really , really

7:34

liked that feeling . I remember just sitting there , going

7:36

, how do you stay here ? How do you not

7:39

go over the edge one way or the other ? You know , I

7:41

don't want to be too sober and I don't want to be too drunk

7:43

, I just want to stay there . And you

7:46

know , I just remember that as if

7:48

it was yesterday . And you know , needless

7:51

to say , that

7:55

it couldn't happen and you

7:57

know , went on with my life and then

8:01

one of the people that they knew they

8:05

were in recovery for heroin , and so

8:07

I got introduced a little bit to the

8:10

program that way . You know , just people

8:12

talking about , you know , 12 steps

8:14

and working a program , and I was just like . But

8:16

I wasn't interested in that because I didn't have that kind of

8:18

a problem . I was just a , you

8:20

know , I was a heavy . I was a heavy

8:22

drinker air quotes

8:24

there , you know

8:26

, just because I didn't remember shit the next day

8:28

. I was just a heavy drinker and

8:31

so so

8:34

that was . That was a good part

8:36

of the early days . Then

8:39

I got

8:41

a job that led me out

8:43

of town and

8:46

one of the people at the building

8:48

that I was working at there was a loan officer that

8:50

came in there who was working with the company , with us . Her

8:53

name was Bobby and

8:55

Bobby was

8:57

I didn't know this at the time

8:59

, but Bobby was sober , had no idea

9:01

, and this is what I'm saying . Like like

9:04

first they meet this hero recovering heroin

9:06

, per , you know , narcotics , anonymous person

9:08

and then Bobby comes into my life

9:10

and Bobby and I become good friends . You

9:12

know we hang around together . I take

9:14

a job down in Newport

9:17

Beach because I moved out to Los Angeles and then

9:19

I got this job down in Newport Beach . Bobby

9:22

was working the north end of Los

9:24

Angeles County . I was working in Orange County

9:26

for the same company . I got

9:28

her a job with them and so we were

9:30

. We were working together . And

9:33

then I remember

9:36

coming home for a weekend , coming

9:38

back to Arizona , and

9:40

getting drunk and humiliating

9:42

myself . I remember doing something

9:45

and I was humiliated and

9:47

I was just . I

9:50

was just . I don't remember , you know . I know exactly

9:52

what it was . I I talked , you know , and

9:54

if you look at it in the grand scheme of things , it was very

9:56

minimal . I talked shit about

9:58

somebody behind their back , somebody that

10:00

I liked , and I said something that wasn't that

10:03

kind of betrayed a trust . Now , I didn't , I

10:05

didn't tell anybody who they were , but I betrayed

10:07

a trust by repeating something they said to me and

10:09

I wasn't drunk enough to black

10:11

it out , but I remember it and I was humiliated

10:14

by that . And then , when Bobby

10:16

said something about that , you know we were

10:18

going , I was back in California and

10:21

we were going back up to Los Angeles

10:23

for the for the weekend from the Orange

10:25

County area . And she says , hey , I just

10:28

want you to know I'm an Alcoholics Anonymous and

10:30

I've got to go to a meeting tonight . There's a speakers

10:32

meeting . Why don't you come and hang out with me and

10:34

my friend Linda , and then

10:37

we'll go for dinner afterwards . I'm like , okay

10:39

, I have no idea . So all of a sudden , I find

10:41

myself in an AA meeting , and

10:43

it was a speakers meeting and I , you know

10:45

, I'm just along for the ride . I'm probably

10:48

, you know , 22 at the time and I

10:50

have no clue . So I'm barely old enough to

10:52

drink , and I've been drinking for so many

10:54

years that when I walked into that room it was

10:56

like the lights went on and

10:58

there was a choir of angels going hello

11:00

, moron , this is where you belong

11:03

. And I'm going . Oh shit

11:05

, I think I'm , I think I am one of these people

11:07

. And so that's

11:09

how my journey started and

11:12

I ended up , you

11:14

know , leading

11:17

my place of where I was living , in Orange

11:19

or in LA , and moving down

11:21

to Orange County for this job

11:23

. So I had to start all over again , what

11:25

was pretty easy , because then I got to find new

11:27

friends and I fell into

11:30

an Alano club and

11:32

from there I met my husband and

11:34

a whole bunch of friends and I

11:36

, you know , started on a sober lifestyle

11:38

. So , you know , we could say

11:40

, you know , wham bam , I figured this out at the

11:42

age of , you know , 22, . You

11:45

know , got married at 24 , was

11:47

sober and somehow managed to figure that part

11:49

out , and then

11:51

the boring life started happening . You know I

11:53

, you know , stayed . You know I'm

11:56

still married to the same person . Now it's been quite

11:58

a while .

12:01

Was he sober at the time ?

12:04

Yes , he was six months ahead of me . Now I'm

12:06

a year ahead of him , so we'll get

12:08

to that story . Yeah , so we met in AA

12:10

. I would go after work , after

12:13

work , every day , I would drive across town

12:15

and I would go to the six o'clock

12:17

meeting . I would get off and work at five o'clock and go

12:19

to the six o'clock meeting on every day that I could

12:21

, and you know , hang

12:23

out at the Alano club because I had no clue what I was

12:25

doing . I was afraid to go out because I knew

12:28

, you know , I knew , left to my own devices

12:30

, I would go right back to , you know , hanging

12:32

out in a bar , one drink , and I would do something

12:34

stupid , because I'd already figured that part out

12:36

, I'd already watched . I didn't want

12:38

to be like my mom , I didn't want to be like my

12:41

grandfather . I saw those people . I said

12:43

I don't want to be them and if I

12:45

keep doing what I'm doing , I'm going to become

12:47

what I don't want to be , and

12:49

you know

12:51

, and so you

12:53

know , and I don't want to be dead . That was the thing is like

12:55

my grandfather was dead from alcoholism . My

12:59

grandmother allowed herself to be killed

13:01

because the alcoholic in her life made

13:03

choices and she didn't stick up for

13:05

herself . And so I watched those

13:07

things and you know , and so

13:09

it's like I don't want to be in that situation

13:12

and with my and then all the men I were

13:14

attracted to were

13:16

, you know , they were drunks

13:18

of some sort or control freaks

13:20

, and it's like and the worst thing is , I am a control

13:22

freak , so I don't need another control freak trying to

13:24

control me , and

13:27

my personality isn't the type that really

13:29

does well with being controlled . So you

13:32

know , what would happen is they would try and control

13:34

me , I would become volatile , there would

13:36

be a fight , and then I would be asked to leave

13:38

, and so it's like , no , that wasn't going to happen

13:40

, so I just started to hang in it .

13:43

That's one of the parts that I love about you

13:45

is because we're so much , you and I are so much alike

13:47

, because I can't stand

13:49

it . That's why I'm a business owner

13:51

is because I cannot stand anybody

13:54

telling me what to do , and that's that . That's

13:56

one of those lines that I dance , you know , between

13:58

the self will run riot and

14:00

do I let

14:03

this go , do I ? You

14:05

know , it's one of those dances that I always struggle

14:07

with and that's why I call you so much is because I'm like

14:09

, well , I know , I have to run this

14:11

thing , you know , and

14:14

it's a small

14:16

to medium sized company , and

14:18

I have to run this thing and I have to be in control

14:21

, otherwise the monkeys run the zoo , but

14:24

I can't be in control of anything as well

14:26

.

14:28

Well , and , and that's it exactly , that's

14:30

it exactly . So I found , you know

14:33

, the perfect person for me who , like

14:35

years ago , they would refer to me

14:37

as the stress monster , because trying to

14:39

leave my side of town to get to the Alano

14:41

club . Because , you know , as far as I was concerned , there

14:43

may have been other AA meetings around us , but

14:46

I had to drive the 15 miles to the Alano

14:48

club because that's where my meetings were , that's

14:50

where my family was , and so

14:53

I would pick up Mark at the Marine base , because

14:55

Mark didn't have a car , and I would

14:57

do this , and he and , and then I'm like we're gonna

14:59

be late . We're gonna be late . He's like stress

15:01

monster , please calm down . And that was

15:03

who I was . And and they don't know

15:06

that I'm a whole lot different . 20

15:08

something years later , 30 years later

15:10

, I still think I'm the only

15:12

lady and it's like just take deep breaths

15:15

, just take deep breaths . And so , um

15:18

, yeah , I didn't do good

15:20

with with having bosses , I didn't do good with

15:22

having , you know , jobs for

15:24

other people . I , you know , I've been

15:26

self-employed more longer than I've

15:28

been , um , employable , you know , employable

15:31

by people . And

15:34

so , you

15:36

know , got sober , met my husband in the program

15:39

, got married in the program , um

15:41

, you know , and

15:44

um , you know , life was going along

15:46

merrily . And then , when you think you got

15:48

it all together , you stop going to the program

15:51

because if you don't find the

15:53

right types of meetings , you end up in the

15:55

meetings that don't nourish your soul

15:57

, and if you don't have

15:59

a sponsor , you end up

16:01

with not having anybody to kick you in the ass

16:03

to go nourish your soul . So

16:06

, um , I didn't have a sponsor

16:08

. Um , I kind of I

16:10

was , oh , when we moved out to Arizona

16:12

. So , we got married and a couple

16:14

years later we moved out to Arizona . My

16:17

father got really sick and , um

16:19

, and

16:21

he wasn't going to make it my father ended

16:23

up dying of cancer . Um , I

16:25

think I was like 25 at the time , and

16:29

so we moved back to Arizona so we could

16:31

be supportive to my mother

16:33

. But at that point in time I couldn't be

16:35

supportive to my mother because she was in her

16:37

her you know , heavy

16:40

parts of her drinking she ended up with a DUI

16:42

and I was such an asshole , you

16:44

know . The next thing with me is I come into the program

16:46

and I know everything you know

16:48

, and there's nothing that that anybody needs

16:50

. More is a brand new , sober person

16:53

who thinks they know everything , telling

16:56

those drunks that they don't know

16:58

anything . And so all I managed to do

17:00

was piss people off . Um , and

17:02

what I've learned in retrospect

17:04

is that needing

17:06

to , or that pretending to know everything

17:08

was just my insecurities popping

17:11

their heads out and annoying the shit out

17:13

of everybody . Um , and that

17:15

was what I was really good at my my

17:17

early , early 20s . Um

17:21

, so that's how I

17:23

, that's how I got into the room the first time . Then

17:25

I was really good . I I

17:27

, you know went to meetings . I , we

17:30

tried to start a meeting out here . Our

17:32

favorite meeting in California was a um

17:34

, a big uh was a 12 step

17:36

study , and so we would take

17:38

the 12 and 12 and

17:40

we would read a chapter a week . So we would

17:42

go around the room and and read a chapter

17:44

, but then you had to write on it . You

17:47

pick something in there . Whether you know

17:49

, most of us ended up bringing our own books

17:51

to the meeting because we would end up writing

17:53

in our book . You know , writing in our books and making

17:56

notes , and then you would actually you know they'd pass out

17:58

pieces of paper and you'd spend 10 , 15

18:00

minutes writing about it and then you would

18:02

read what you wrote or you would just

18:04

share . But it was a way that you

18:06

actually were forced to digest

18:09

the program you were . You

18:11

were not only were you reading

18:13

it , but you were internalizing it and making

18:15

it yours , and that

18:18

was my favorite meeting . And so when we

18:20

moved out to Arizona , we tried to recreate

18:22

that meeting and we

18:24

couldn't . We couldn't get people

18:26

to attend . I guess nobody

18:28

really wanted to work , work on their program

18:31

. Where we were at Now that was just where

18:33

we're at and we probably should have just moved

18:35

around . Okay , well , this geographic isn't

18:37

, isn't our home group , let's go find a new , let's

18:39

go see if we could find another home group . So

18:41

we really struggled with the relocation

18:44

part of of moving

18:47

here . And then we did find and

18:49

come in with to a crowd , and

18:51

the crowd was a combination of a couple

18:53

of some drunks and some Alenon people

18:55

and we we ran

18:58

with this crowd for for quite a while

19:00

and but

19:02

the problem is you can't have an Alenon as

19:04

the alcoholic sponsor and

19:07

then you need to have a backup plan

19:09

. And so when those

19:11

people ended up having some family

19:13

problems and I ended up with family problems

19:15

at the same time , I didn't have

19:17

the support that I needed because I let I

19:20

let those people that were , you know , the group

19:22

not be . I didn't make

19:25

myself part of a group

19:27

so that I had other phone

19:29

numbers to reach out to . So

19:31

the next thing I know I'm struggling

19:34

and and so

19:37

it seems to be okay , I can I'm on

19:40

a business trip and I

19:42

should have said no to the business trip . So I

19:45

take a job at a CPA firm . I've got to finish

19:47

up to try and get my , my license as a

19:49

, as a CPA , and I have to do one

19:52

year at a CPA firm to be

19:55

able to get my license . I didn't

19:57

make the year , by the way , so

20:01

I get . He decides

20:03

that six months after

20:05

tax season , our celebration was to go to

20:07

Napa Valley and go on wine

20:09

tasting trip . And I should have said

20:12

and it was basically , you have to go

20:14

or you don't have a job . And I should have said I

20:16

quit . Thanks very much , and , by the

20:18

way , here's my lawsuit because I'm

20:20

in recovery . But I didn't do that . And he

20:22

just said you know what ? You don't have to drink if you aren't on drinker

20:24

, but you have to go on the trip . And I went

20:26

and I tasted wine and that was

20:29

, you know , the beginning of the end . And

20:31

so you know there's only you

20:33

can't put a drunk in a

20:36

limo for six hours with people

20:38

who are drinking and

20:40

keep them exposed for six hours and have

20:43

no ability to reach out . And I just

20:45

basically cracked at that point in time and

20:47

so how much time did you ? have

20:50

at that point , 14 years . Yeah

20:54

, yeah , if you didn't , if you

20:56

can't tell , rich's eyes just went really really big

20:58

. Yeah , I gave up 14 years on

21:00

that trip and

21:02

so I just had , you know , a couple

21:04

of sips of wine , you know , and

21:07

then I

21:09

was able to do

21:11

control drinking , meaning

21:14

I would have , you know , a couple

21:16

of sips of wine at you know , this event

21:18

and six months to go

21:20

by and I'd have a couple more sips of wine at that

21:22

event , you know , and I'm not going to

21:24

meetings . And

21:28

then I meet

21:30

somebody who was you

21:34

ever meet somebody ? And you're really really like

21:37

. They're very electric , you

21:39

know . You really want to be their friend . I

21:42

don't want to . I think it was my first , you know , girl

21:44

romance . I fell in love with this girl , you

21:47

know . We were good friends and we

21:49

just really clicked and hit it off and

21:51

I didn't realize that she was a complete narcissist

21:54

and she was just stringing . She

21:56

would string people on by being really

21:58

nice and

22:02

stuff like that , and then she would use

22:05

you when she needed you and

22:07

I didn't realize that . I just thought

22:09

I was really suckered in by

22:11

how warm and charming she was and really

22:13

wanted to be her friend , for whatever reason , and

22:16

so I started this great friendship

22:18

and she was very giving and

22:21

the next thing I know is I'm sitting over at her house

22:23

drinking with her and her friends . And

22:28

so now it's no longer just controlled

22:30

drinking , which I managed to do for about a year , and

22:33

not controlled drinking , meaning like I'd have a drink here and

22:35

then six months to go by , but now I'm

22:37

drinking on a regular basis and

22:40

now and

22:42

then at that time my husband and I have been going through infertility

22:45

treatments and stuff like

22:47

that , and so that was really challenging . My

22:49

mom had passed away and I think

22:51

that was when I really that

22:53

was kind of when the Once

22:56

my mom died I started drinking more

22:58

on a regular basis because I didn't

23:00

want to go through the grief . My

23:03

mom and I had a really rocky relationship

23:05

when I was growing up . I blamed her for the

23:07

stuff that went wrong with her and my father and

23:12

I was a daddy's girl , so

23:14

she got a lot of abuse from me . Just

23:17

as she abused me verbally

23:20

and physically . I was verbally abused

23:22

back to her , and

23:24

then we finally started making

23:27

really good progress on putting

23:29

our relationship back together again and

23:32

she agreed to go into therapy to

23:35

deal with some of the things that had happened to her

23:37

, because her father was just a complete

23:39

piece of work and

23:44

I remember as a little kid him abusing

23:46

my mother . So she's a grown

23:49

married woman and she's being abused by

23:51

her verbally

23:53

and physically abused by her own father . I

23:56

remember that to this day . And

23:58

so she finally agreed to go into therapy and

24:00

then , poof , she died , and so

24:03

I didn't handle that very well at

24:05

all , and so it

24:07

started off with just having one

24:10

or two beers a night , and then

24:12

we were able to adopt children , and

24:17

then the next thing I know

24:19

is I'm six years into adopting children

24:22

and I realized that I now

24:24

have to have basically a pint

24:26

of vodka or half a pint of vodka a day

24:28

to get by . And

24:30

that became

24:33

, you know , and it was

24:35

like . So Bill and I are now in

24:37

competition because when I relapsed . One of

24:39

the things that happened in our marriage is , when I relapsed

24:41

, he came along with me . You

24:43

know , if you can try it again , I'm going to try it again

24:46

. And so we tried it again

24:48

together and we were , you know

24:50

, we were okay for a little while , but neither one

24:52

of us wanted to go back to admitting we were an alcoholic

24:54

. We both , we both knew we were alcoholics

24:57

, we were both wired to ourselves , but

24:59

neither one of us wanted to give up because

25:01

we thought , okay , let's just try this

25:03

control drinking stuff . And

25:05

the control drinking just didn't work . And

25:08

so then it became okay . How much ? You

25:10

know we would be buying a couple of gallons

25:12

of vodka a week , and

25:14

you know you go and buy two

25:16

. I'll go to a different store and buy two . This way

25:18

Nobody knows how bad we really are . You

25:21

know we can't go shopping together because you know

25:24

and I know it's not that anybody really pays

25:26

attention , but I'm paying attention , I'm

25:28

trying to talk myself out of being an alcoholic

25:30

, I'm trying to pretend that I'm really

25:32

not a drunk , and so

25:34

you know and it's like you've always got

25:36

to make sure before you come home from work that there's enough vodka

25:39

in the house that you're , you're okay and

25:41

you know how quickly can I get the kids to bed so

25:43

I can get to oblivion and and

25:45

that was that was pretty much

25:48

. You know how

25:50

it how it went for a bunch of years

25:52

and I

25:54

had rules about drinking too . You

25:56

know I didn't want to drink before five o'clock

25:58

, so you know , I still had to function

26:00

as a business owner and as a mom . You

26:02

know you can't go pick up your kids from from

26:05

school drunk , so you've got to be , you know , sober

26:07

enough to do that . So can't drink

26:09

until after five o'clock , can't

26:12

do this , can't do that , can't do this . And

26:15

so I made alcohol behave itself

26:17

until you know

26:19

, after six o'clock to you know 10

26:21

o'clock I could do . You know I could drink , as

26:23

you know , and I couldn't drink as much as I

26:26

wanted to because I couldn't deal with the hangover that I

26:28

could take because I had to function . So I managed

26:30

to manipulate myself

26:32

and manipulate alcohol to behave

26:34

to a certain point . But

26:38

I was miserable . I was absolutely

26:41

freaking miserable and

26:45

I didn't like being miserable . And

26:48

so it's like I did what

26:50

I needed to do every day to

26:53

try and keep misery in

26:55

its box , because misery

26:57

, by six o'clock at night , was coming out . And

27:01

if I was going to go out and make , most people

27:03

who we socialized with didn't know that

27:05

I was an alcoholic because I would go to a party

27:07

at your house and I would have two drinks

27:09

. But I drove in the car

27:12

over the way you're to your house with

27:14

a cup that had alcohol in it and then

27:16

I had my two drinks at your house and

27:18

then when I left your house , I had to leave early

27:21

enough so I could go home and drink

27:23

more , because I couldn't get drunk at your house

27:25

because I didn't want the DUI , because

27:28

that would have meant that I was a real alcoholic . And

27:30

I'm not a real alcoholic . See , I'm functioning

27:33

, so I'm not going to be a

27:35

real alcoholic . I'm going to make alcohol

27:37

behave and then when I get home I

27:39

can drink as much as I can , you

27:42

know , as I'm allotted , so that

27:44

I could be functioning tomorrow morning

27:46

and I would get to just that euphoric

27:48

state . I knew if I drank too much I'd have that hangover

27:51

and I'd be miserable , and I didn't want to be miserable . And

27:53

so I manipulated and controlled

27:56

alcohol as long as I could to

27:58

get it to behave itself . It

28:00

didn't work .

28:01

I did a lot of that . Yeah

28:06

, I

28:08

had the perfect scapegoat because I owned a restaurant

28:11

or I was picking up booze from my uncle's

28:13

restaurant and I would put

28:15

it all on the company credit card and I would write it off

28:17

and , as a CPA

28:20

, I'm sure you appreciate that very much .

28:23

Absolutely .

28:24

And I

28:27

would do it . I had these big 32

28:29

ounce Yeti tumblers and I would make margaritas

28:32

in them and I would , yeah

28:35

, and I would do that . And I had the half gallons

28:37

and I would just . Okay , this is

28:40

mine , nobody can see what's in it , this

28:42

is mine for the day and I'm going over to the pool

28:44

and this is just how I'm going to . Or I'm going

28:46

out on the boat and this is just how I'm going to roll , and

28:49

nobody's the wiser , because they can't smell a margarita

28:52

on me .

28:54

Right , right . Tequila

28:56

doesn't smell . That's

28:58

why I switched to vodka , because vodka

29:00

was a lot harder to smell than the tequila was

29:03

, because tequila would smell .

29:04

Oh , I did a lot of vodka , I did a lot of Bloody

29:06

Mary's and I did a lot of , you know

29:09

, tito's and club was my go-to

29:11

, or a dirty martini , it was really

29:13

Tito's and club .

29:14

My mother would have been proud of you .

29:16

Really really hard to drink

29:19

64 ounces of dirty martini

29:21

at a clip , but

29:24

it's doable .

29:28

I remember going to a party and

29:30

the bartender , when I said enough

29:32

, evidently he heard one more and

29:34

I think I was like my fifth

29:36

dirty martini

29:39

and I'm like , oh holy sugar , how am I going to drive

29:41

home ? Oh , my God , you

29:43

know , it wasn't . No , I couldn't drink

29:45

this . It was like , how am I going to drink this

29:47

and drive home ? I mean , this is alcoholic

29:49

thinking . I can't say no to

29:52

the martini . It's

29:54

not like I was paying the bill , it's

29:56

not like , nope , I got to

29:58

drink the martini Somebody . You know

30:00

, gray goose no

30:03

. I'm not going to say no to a really good

30:05

martini , and this place was a really good martini

30:07

.

30:08

There was never a question in my mind

30:10

whether

30:13

or not I was going to finish . You know

30:15

, I had no problem closing a bar down . I

30:17

had absolutely no problem with it at all . If I couldn't

30:20

see , if I couldn't stand , if I was getting served

30:22

, I was going to stay there . And

30:24

at that

30:26

point in my mind it

30:28

was never okay , let's take an Uber

30:30

. It was like all right , how far am I

30:32

? All right , put

30:35

your big boy pants on , let's go . All

30:38

right . You know , plow truck , dump

30:40

truck , box truck , motorcycle

30:43

, it didn't matter , I

30:46

managed to and I have no idea , by

30:48

the grace of God , you know . That's why I

30:51

do truly believe that there's a reason why I'm still

30:53

around , you know

30:55

, because the most dangerous part of my life

30:58

was not being in the service , was not being in Afghanistan

31:00

. It was not , you know , it

31:03

had nothing to do with any of that . The

31:05

most dangerous part of my life was being behind

31:07

the wheel , drunk as often as

31:10

I was .

31:11

Yeah , see , my

31:13

thing was that if I was going to drink

31:16

I was going to do it within just a couple miles of my

31:18

house , so I could take , you know , little side

31:20

streets if I needed to . But I

31:22

would prefer to just drink at home because

31:24

then I didn't have to worry about getting caught

31:27

drinking , because to me a

31:29

real alcoholic gets a DUI and

31:31

so I couldn't get the DUI because then it

31:33

would be a real alcoholic . So I needed to do anything

31:36

I could to avoid getting the DUI

31:38

, because then I would have to face it . I

31:40

didn't want to face it . I already knew

31:42

I already had been to AA

31:44

and I don't know why

31:47

I fought it as long as I

31:49

did . Because the first time sober if

31:51

I look in retrospect I

31:53

had great friends . You

31:56

know , when I got sober in California

31:58

, I found the right group . I

32:00

had great friends . I had a fantastic

32:03

you know wedding sober . We

32:05

had a lot of fun doing sober things

32:08

. And

32:12

then I gave it all up and kept convincing myself

32:15

that this was better than

32:17

being sober . And

32:23

it wasn't , but I kept . It was that

32:25

fear of the unknown , it was like

32:28

. Well , when I moved out to Arizona it was not

32:30

as fun as it was in California , and

32:32

so now I don't have the same fun anymore

32:34

. So , you know , and

32:37

things change , and that was one of the other things I

32:39

don't think I do very well . It's

32:41

funny , I don't think I do very well with change

32:43

Like , don't change my program . You

32:45

know , I want my program to see the

32:47

way it is . I don't want my program to change

32:49

, and I think that's one of the reasons

32:51

why , like , the 6A meeting is so important

32:53

to me . It's like don't change my program

32:56

. You know . It's like I need to be plugged

32:58

into these people . You know , I need to know , even

33:00

if I can't get there , I need to know that they're

33:02

there , because if I need them , they're there

33:04

. And so , you know , and

33:07

so I've been become really , really

33:09

dependent , you know , on my program

33:12

and I'm okay with that today . So

33:15

, yeah , so

33:19

I , you know , managed to , you know , to get

33:21

through a bunch of bunch of years sitting on my

33:23

couch drinking beer and vodka

33:25

and , and you know , pretending everything

33:27

was okay until it was no longer okay , and

33:29

I was miserable , and

33:31

I kept watching my husband be miserable . He

33:34

was at a job that he hated . He

33:37

wouldn't , he wouldn't go , look

33:39

for another job . You know

33:41

I was . I allowed

33:44

people around me who were unhealthy to

33:46

be you know , mentally unhealthy to be around me

33:48

and I was letting that mess with my head

33:50

. And so I , just I , was getting miserable

33:52

. He was miserable At

33:55

one point before we both got

33:57

sober . I wasn't sure how much longer I could be married

33:59

to him , because

34:02

everything that was wrong I could now blame

34:04

on him , because then I didn't have to look

34:06

at me . And so you

34:08

know , if he would just change , there wouldn't be any problems

34:11

. Meanwhile

34:13

, on the one , we're gun parts involved .

34:16

We're gun parts involved .

34:18

No , no , no , Weapons

34:21

were never involved .

34:25

I didn't know if that brought about any of your misery .

34:28

No , no , no , Weapons were never involved

34:30

in our , in our , in our

34:32

misery . No , just just , we

34:34

were both unhappy people . You

34:36

know you could , you know , and when

34:38

you're unhappy , you know and the and

34:40

you do care about the other person and you

34:42

know you're unhappy there , I'm happy , you

34:45

know . well , I'm going to blame you for my unhappiness

34:47

because I'm unhappy and you're

34:49

unhappy and you're obviously causing my unhappiness

34:52

, and so neither one of us owned up to the fact

34:54

of what was going on with our own

34:56

emotional and mental health . And

34:59

you know we thought we'd had everything

35:01

we wanted at this point in time . We've got , you know , two

35:03

healthy , you know happy kids . You

35:06

know we're they're both participating

35:08

in in sports , they're both active . And

35:11

you know I'd have to go . It got so

35:14

bad that I didn't go to the ball

35:16

games and at first I drove over there with my

35:18

, with my Yeti Tumblr , you know , with

35:20

my Vodka and whatever , and I'd swing by

35:22

the convenience store and I'd go buy

35:24

two Mike's hard lemonade and

35:26

stick them in my little cooler and

35:29

then I would run over to the car at at you know

35:31

. You know intermission , you know , in an inning change

35:33

, pop the lid , pour it back into my Yeti

35:35

cooler , you know , go back up

35:38

my cup . And , you know , go back and sit down . And

35:40

you know , if we had a double header , I'd have to go buy

35:42

four to get through the night . And then I could

35:45

drive the kids home , tuck them into bed . It's

35:47

nine o'clock , I could sit down and go back to my Vodka

35:49

. You know , drink Vodka until you know

35:52

1030 , get up and do it all over

35:54

again the next day . And that was . You

35:56

know , that's what , what life was

35:58

for us for a while . And

36:00

then one day I

36:02

am , I just

36:05

had had enough . There was nothing

36:07

that triggered it , I just

36:09

said I couldn't deal with being unhappy

36:11

anymore . I hated my husband

36:13

, I hated myself , I

36:16

was , and

36:18

I said I can't do this anymore . And I walked back

36:20

in AA and and I

36:23

started all over again there

36:25

, there it was . Just the light went on

36:27

and I said I'm becoming

36:29

the people I didn't want to be . You

36:32

know , it was just a revelation

36:34

.

36:36

Now in your in your previous

36:38

14 years , you did that

36:40

without a sponsor or no , I

36:42

had a sponsor in the beginning and then I had

36:45

another sponsor and

36:47

I did .

36:48

I probably had a sponsor for 10 years

36:50

and then the last five years I

36:52

didn't have a sponsor , you know . And and

36:55

the first 10 years I you know , was big

36:57

. I served as

37:00

a what was it ? An intergroup

37:02

liaison I ? I

37:04

was the chair of meetings

37:06

. If you needed a volunteer

37:09

, I would , I would volunteer to do it , you

37:13

know anything like that , I I did for a while

37:15

, you know , and and

37:18

then . but the problem was is that

37:20

the group that I was plugged in was on the west side of

37:22

town . Then our jobs took us to the

37:24

east side of town and instead of

37:26

finding , you know , then I , then it became

37:28

inconvenient to do meetings , you

37:30

know , after work . So I'd try and do lunch meetings

37:33

, and then it's harder to find

37:35

a sponsor when you're at a lunch meeting because

37:37

you're going in and out . You're there

37:39

for you know , 12 to one , and then you're

37:41

, you're gone again , you know

37:43

, and so it's really hard to get connected to

37:45

people that you're seeing , for you know , yeah , you

37:47

might see them five hour , you know five hours

37:50

a week at lunchtime , but

37:52

how connected are you if you're ? You know , running

37:55

in , sitting down , say you know , going through

37:57

the , the meeting , and running out at you

37:59

know 105 , so that you

38:02

can get back to your office . And you know

38:04

, because it was too inconvenient to go at night , I

38:06

don't know what the hell I was doing at night , by the way .

38:08

Yeah , and for those of you that don't know

38:11

, sharon's Sharon's

38:13

got her own personal tagline

38:15

and it has become

38:18

a . It's become a staple of

38:21

of Sharon to

38:23

. I mean , take

38:25

it away , it's your , it's your tagline

38:28

.

38:29

Call your damn sponsor . You

38:31

know what my sponsor said to me today . You

38:33

know , Sharon , you can call your damn sponsor .

38:42

And that's what brought about . You

38:44

know the question . You know in

38:46

that , in that 14 years , so the last

38:48

five , you didn't have a sponsor , and

38:51

you know I mean what . What

38:53

do you think that that had

38:55

something to do with with

38:57

the relapse or ?

38:59

So I think I can . I

39:02

believe in my heart that there are two things

39:04

that caused me to to fail the

39:06

first time in AA . One

39:09

was that I didn't

39:11

have a sponsor , and two was

39:13

the spiritual aspect of the program

39:16

. I

39:19

am really , really big in prayer and meditation

39:21

. Now , I've always been

39:23

big in prayer and you

39:25

know my my conscious

39:28

, my consciousness of a higher power has

39:30

evolved from from

39:33

when I was a kid , you know . You were introduced to

39:35

God , maybe through your family , you know the church

39:37

that your family goes to . Then

39:39

I got introduced to you know other things

39:41

. Then my husband's sponsor

39:43

was a born again Christian . So I came back

39:45

to the Christian church and believed

39:48

that for a while and

39:50

I always , you know . And then from then on I pretty

39:52

much went to , went to church , but

39:55

I don't feel like I had a relationship with a

39:57

higher power in any way . I

40:00

could go to church and I could , you know , sing

40:02

the songs and I know Bible verses and all

40:04

that kind of stuff , but I didn't have

40:06

a connection to a higher power . And

40:09

you know , even when , even

40:11

when my adoptions were going on , those were

40:13

, those were brutal , brutal moments , having

40:16

a relationship with a higher power and having a

40:18

sponsor . What a shit saved my

40:20

ass that was . Those were some of

40:22

the most miserable moments of my life

40:24

and it was so much easier to drink

40:27

than it was to deal with the

40:29

the bullshit that was happening

40:31

. As we're trying to fight basically

40:34

legal battles that I've hired

40:36

other people to do and they're not doing their jobs

40:38

for and it was just easier to

40:40

to drink , and so that was . You

40:42

know , that was part , the early part of my

40:44

relapse was I'll just , I'll just drink

40:46

to deal with with this , and

40:49

but then by that point in time , then I get two

40:51

kids and and I'm , you know , drinking and

40:53

and stuff like that . But no , now

40:56

, to me , sobriety really consists

40:58

of of prayer and meditation . I

41:01

I'm to the point where I even write my prayers

41:03

you know some of my prayers down . You

41:05

know , maybe , maybe

41:07

it comes in better to

41:09

me , but meditation is important . I

41:11

go to bed every night , you know , meditating

41:14

, and

41:16

I think that that is super

41:18

important for me to be connected and for me

41:20

to be grounded . And

41:23

it's important for me to be able to see

41:25

the change in my life , because I don't

41:27

want to stay where I am

41:29

today . I want to grow , I

41:31

want to become better , and

41:34

the only way I can do that is is , if you

41:37

leave me , do it . I've already shown you

41:39

what I can do on my own . I can go out and get drunk

41:41

. I'm really good at that and I don't want

41:43

to do that . I need to find a

41:45

path of growth that

41:48

will move me to be

41:50

the better person that I want to be , to

41:53

be able to experience the beauty that's

41:55

in the in the planet . Move

41:57

me to be able to grow

42:00

these two humans and to you

42:02

know , healthy adults . I don't want them to go

42:04

grow up with the baggage

42:06

that I have , and they already have baggage

42:08

. They're two adopted kids , so they've

42:10

already got their own baggage because their

42:12

biological families aren't where

42:14

they're being raised , and so I

42:17

need to be not

42:19

a better mom , but I need to make

42:21

sure that they're loved and that they

42:23

know that they're loved the same way

42:25

, in a way that I didn't know that I , I

42:27

was loved . I mean , I know that my parents

42:29

love me , but I don't want my kids to question

42:31

it so that they're looking at drugs and alcohol

42:34

and sex for a way to fulfill that

42:36

, and so

42:38

that's who I am today . Is is

42:40

I ask God , how do I become

42:42

a better parent today ? How do

42:44

I become a better human being

42:46

today ? What do I need

42:48

to get out of myself so

42:50

that I can be there for who needs

42:53

me ? And so

42:55

that's that's how I try

42:57

and live my life now . Is is I'm

42:59

done being the selfish asshole , and

43:01

all right , I'm still a selfish asshole

43:03

.

43:04

But I try to .

43:06

I try to get out of me being the selfish asshole

43:08

and be , you know , that kind , loving person

43:10

, and

43:14

so that's what I try to do

43:16

today . I think it's super

43:18

important for my kids to know

43:21

that I get the privilege of being

43:24

their mom . To

43:26

me , it's an honor , it's a privilege , and

43:28

so I want them to know that , no

43:31

matter what they feel , I

43:34

got a gift by being their

43:36

parent today , and that's where I am

43:38

. And so how do I do that ? And

43:41

be drunk ? Hi

43:43

, I'm grateful to be your mom . I'm so drunk I

43:45

can't stand up and take care of you

43:48

. You're taking care of me . That's bullshit . I'm

43:50

grateful to be your mom . So what do I need to do

43:52

to show you that I'm grateful ? I need to

43:54

show you what it's like to live life without alcohol

43:57

. I need to show you what it's like to live

43:59

life without drugs . I need to show

44:01

you being healthy . I need

44:03

to show you that prayer and meditation

44:05

are a way that you can deal with the

44:07

insanity that's outside those windows

44:09

. I'm going to give you a safe place to live

44:11

in , but you've got to be able to go on to that

44:14

world one day and fight it , because I can't fight

44:16

your dragons . So how am

44:18

I going to do that without modeling that ? And

44:20

that's why we go to AA is so

44:23

that my sponsor

44:25

models the behavior that I want

44:27

. I chose someone who has what I

44:29

want , and so

44:31

I look for that , and

44:34

that's what we want is we want

44:36

people who model the behavior

44:39

that we want . You

44:41

always heard the saying fake it until you make it . Well

44:43

, that's what AA is . We're shaking

44:45

it until we make it and then eventually

44:48

we turn around and go holy shit , I made it

44:50

this far . How the hell did I get four

44:52

years ?

44:54

How did ?

44:54

I make 24 hours . Sober , I

44:56

made it , I faked it , I faked

44:58

it , I faked it , I made it 24

45:00

hours . Let's see if I could do another one . And then you

45:02

string them together , and you string them together

45:05

and then all of a sudden , I've got four freaking

45:07

years and you're like , wow , I got four years

45:09

. How ? Did this happen 24

45:12

hours . I got 24 hours . Let's

45:14

see what I can get done in 24 hours . Can I not

45:16

drink in these 24 hours ?

45:19

And so it cracked me up . You

45:22

know , I heard this morning , you know somebody always

45:25

achieved to the world record for

45:27

25 hours sober

45:29

and I just I

45:31

laughed my ass off at that . This morning I

45:35

cry . Every day I try to

45:37

get the world record for 25 hours straight

45:39

but

45:42

it always resets on me . But I'm

45:44

going to keep trying .

45:45

Exactly so . I have 24

45:48

hours to keep the demon

45:50

at bay , because you know that demon comes

45:52

knocking on the door . You

45:54

know , you know , some days

45:57

it's like you know what a drink would just make this

45:59

so much better . And

46:01

when I was talking to my sponsor last

46:03

week . You know she's like she's

46:05

the next customer . The

46:08

drink makes it better for what ? A minute

46:10

, two minutes , 10 minutes , okay

46:13

. So it got better for 10 minutes . And then

46:15

what happens ? At the end of that 10 minutes , reality

46:18

bites you in the ass again and you have

46:20

to go get another drink to be able to make

46:22

it better for the next 10 minutes . And

46:25

then we get to the point where we're oblivious because

46:27

we kept stacking that alcohol up and

46:29

now we can't remember and

46:31

we think it got better . And then the morning

46:34

all that we

46:36

drank behind is

46:38

still there . And then we have the wreckage

46:40

at the last of the night before

46:43

. And now you have twice as much shit to

46:45

deal with . I don't want to clean up anymore

46:47

Shit . I'm tired of cleaning up shit

46:49

. You know it's like I just have to clean

46:51

up with . Why don't I just start with cleaning up with

46:54

the crap that's going on in my life , whatever

46:56

that is , whether it's a customer , whether it's a kid

46:58

, whether it's a marriage thing , whether it's a grocery store

47:01

thing , whether it's . I dropped a bottle of olive

47:03

oil on the kitchen floor and I got to clean that fucking

47:05

mess up . You know it's like , whatever it is

47:07

that has got to be better to clean

47:10

up by itself than if I try to clean

47:12

it up with alcohol , because alcohol

47:14

doesn't clean up shit . You

47:16

know , I might get a couple of stains out , but

47:18

that's if you use it on fabric , not

47:21

on ourselves , and it doesn't get the stains

47:23

out of us and

47:25

so alcohol doesn't fix anything

47:27

. You know , it might start a good fire

47:30

, but that's about it . Do

47:32

we really need fire ? Do we

47:34

really need fire ?

47:35

There's better things to start a fire with .

47:38

Exactly , Exactly . So

47:40

yeah , I kind of feel like I'm just

47:42

a boring drunk now , you know , and

47:44

I want to be a boring drunk and really

47:47

I'm not . I've got a really active

47:49

life . When I first came into the program

47:51

and I met my sponsor and I was talking

47:53

to her , you know , she's

47:55

like , well , tell me about you , know what you do . And I said

47:58

, well , I'm the so to

48:00

try and stay sober , because I didn't get it . You

48:02

know you don't get a sponsor the minute you walk in the

48:04

door . You walk into the door and

48:06

I handled . When I came back in I handled this

48:08

like a lunch and learn . I showed up at noon

48:10

for the 12 o'clock meeting and I sat

48:12

there for an hour and a half because

48:15

I stayed . This time I figured out I need to stay

48:17

and I got you know some phone numbers , but

48:20

I wanted to watch people this time because I wasn't

48:23

going to get high and it

48:25

patched to the wrong people . I wanted to see

48:27

who was around and

48:29

so I went to the meeting , I brought

48:31

my lunch , I sat there and I handled it like it was a

48:33

lunch learn and then I would go back to work . And

48:37

then I started trying to figure out

48:39

, okay , what meetings are going on around me and I tried

48:41

different places and this meeting was good and this meeting

48:43

was good and I liked this meeting and

48:45

I really liked the

48:49

meditation meeting , the 11th

48:51

step meeting , and

48:56

so I made that part of my

48:59

Sunday ritual and so I would

49:01

go to church and then I would

49:03

leave my kids at church with my cousin

49:05

and we

49:08

would drive over to GIT and

49:11

do the meditation

49:13

meeting and it

49:18

really helped out . And so I got sober

49:20

. You know that year that I got sober , you

49:22

know I spent a full year being married to

49:24

somebody who was still actively drinking . So

49:27

just because I got sober , my husband didn't stop

49:29

. And it got so bad

49:31

that my daughter was finding

49:33

his alcohol because he's hiding it around the house

49:35

and he's too drunk to know that he's hiding it

49:37

really , really shitty hiding spots . So

49:40

the little kid is finding the hidden alcohol

49:42

in the house and taking it and yelling at

49:44

him . I didn't have to yell at him , I didn't have

49:46

to demand anything . My daughter did it . She

49:49

would turn around , take the lid off the bottle

49:51

, tell him that he's got to stop this and then stand

49:53

there in the kitchen and pour it down the drain . And

49:58

so I don't . You know there was alcohol

50:01

in the office , there was alcohol in the laundry

50:03

, there was alcohol in the hallway . You

50:05

know let's hide the alcohol behind the dog food

50:07

and the kids are the ones who feed the dogs . You

50:10

know . You just shake your head like these are really stupid

50:12

and I wasn't going to

50:15

pour it out . You want to drink yourself to

50:17

death Go ahead . My daughter threw a fit and

50:19

she just yelled at her father on a regular basis

50:21

that he needed to stop . And

50:24

when I started going to the meditation

50:27

meeting after church on Sundays , he

50:29

started going with me . And

50:33

he didn't quit drinking , but he started going with me . And

50:36

then eventually , then he lost his

50:38

job , the job

50:40

that I said that he'd been miserable at . He'd lost

50:42

that job , you

50:45

know , got a new boss and the boss didn't like him . His

50:47

attitude sucked and you

50:49

know . And it came down to you

50:52

know they wrote him up and they said

50:54

you need to quit or this

50:57

is going to happen , or this is going to happen . And

50:59

when he said , you know , what do you think I should do ? I said I think

51:01

you should quit . You know it's like you're already miserable

51:04

. Why go ? Why go someplace where you're miserable

51:06

? Life's too short for that . And

51:09

so he quit . And then

51:11

I gave him an ultimatum . I

51:13

gave him an ultimatum that he needed to stop

51:17

drinking or I was going to leave him . And

51:20

he doesn't even remember

51:22

that ultimatum . I actually wrote it out , told him

51:24

that I loved him , but I couldn't keep living like this

51:26

. And you

51:28

know I'd already spent a year and a couple of months like

51:30

that and I'm like I just can't do it . You're not getting

51:32

better , you're just you need to

51:35

change . And he

51:37

did . I gave him that letter , probably in

51:40

August , and somewhere

51:42

around September 15th he goes when

51:44

did you write this note ? And

51:48

it had been . It had been almost 30 days . I

51:50

was just about ready to start looking for apartments and

51:55

somewhere , somewhere right around

51:57

our kids you know , birthdays in early

52:00

October we ended up starting to go

52:02

to the meeting and

52:05

so we just kept hitting that same meeting , getting

52:07

that same meeting and over

52:09

and over again . And you know I

52:11

sponsors from that meeting . I'd

52:13

chosen her before that and made

52:16

sure . You know I started doing a 6am

52:19

meeting and if you know me , I hate

52:21

6am , I do

52:23

not like 6am . And

52:26

now I wake up before

52:28

that meeting . I'm up most

52:30

of the time by , you know , 5 o'clock Arizona

52:33

time , 5.30 Arizona time . Some

52:36

days I get to sleep in , but most of the time I'm up early

52:38

because I have convinced myself

52:40

that that's what I need to

52:43

be mentally okay

52:45

. And

52:47

now today I refer to AA as my

52:49

toolbox . I

52:52

wake up in the middle of the night and somehow

52:54

, in the middle of the night , my tools manage to

52:56

run out of their little toolbox and

52:58

they're all over the floor , they're all over wherever

53:00

the hell those tools go and I

53:03

get to get up in the morning and go to

53:05

AA to pick up my tools and go . Oh

53:07

yeah , sobriety , it means don't overreact

53:09

to people who are assholes . Put that in the thing

53:12

. Oh yeah , say a prayer

53:14

when something goes wrong . Oh yeah , I can put that

53:16

in the toolbox . Oh

53:18

yeah , the serenity prayer

53:20

that's a great tool I can use that

53:22

. Okay , I'll put that in there . And

53:25

I hear the tools that I need for my toolbox

53:28

and remember what my

53:30

destination is , the road trudging

53:33

along the road of happy destiny . And

53:36

I find , oh , that's where I'm going today

53:38

Along the road of happy death . Okay , now

53:40

I know what my objective is today , and so

53:42

I get that , rebuild the toolbox

53:44

and then I go . Okay , I can fight , I can go out

53:46

and deal with whatever's going on around me

53:49

to the best of my ability . Now it doesn't mean

53:51

I'm not going to need to talk to my sponsor

53:53

or one of my friends , but

53:56

it means that I know what I need

53:58

to do . And now I

54:01

incorporate a walking meditation

54:03

in the middle of the day almost every day . I'll take

54:05

a break at lunchtime and I just

54:07

ask God okay , guide me through the next

54:09

part of whatever's going to happen . And

54:12

I could have had a really successful morning or I

54:14

could have had a really crappy morning , but

54:16

I'm going to take that walk and I'm going to go . Let's

54:18

even it out , god , and let's go on

54:21

and make sure that

54:23

I'm okay . And what do I need to

54:25

do next ? And

54:27

I pray a lot when I drive . It

54:30

might be get this asshole out of my way

54:32

. Prayer , but sometimes

54:35

. But I pray

54:39

a lot and I

54:43

do meditation a lot and

54:45

so I try and end . I try to stay

54:48

in AA . So then

54:50

we come along . So I've got , you know , a year or maybe

54:52

two years sober and then the damn thing

54:54

called COVID hits , and now we've got to go to zoom

54:57

and people

54:59

were screaming and carrying on about zoom

55:01

and how it's not real AA . And

55:03

I fell in love with zoom because

55:05

I could go to a meeting in my pajamas

55:08

. This meant that I didn't have to get

55:10

up , I didn't have to get out of bed at five

55:12

o'clock and get my ass ready and run

55:14

out the door and try and be someplace

55:16

at you know six am

55:18

so I can have a chair so I could get to a meeting

55:20

. I could actually get ready

55:23

and be there

55:25

when meeting at six am and stay

55:27

at home and I wasn't zigzagging

55:29

across town because I got to take my kids to school

55:32

. And

55:35

so the zoom thing became

55:37

really , really great for me . And

55:39

then it became a really great place for me to be

55:41

able to volunteer . Before

55:44

that I was volunteering with my kids baseball

55:47

and stuff like that . So

55:49

I became the baseball mom because I

55:51

could be sober if I was

55:53

the coach or the assistant coach , even though I didn't

55:55

play . You know , when I was a kid , I

55:57

watched a lot of baseball . It was one of my favorite things

56:00

. So I could turn around and I could be the coach or

56:02

the assistant coach . And then I learned

56:04

how to scorekeep . And

56:06

scorekeeping was great for somebody

56:08

who's got ADD , because you've got to pay attention

56:11

to all the stuff that's going on in the field and

56:13

you can't be drinking , and so that

56:15

became a great way for me to go back

56:17

into life and not

56:20

be focusing on me and not be focusing

56:22

on I can't drink . What the hell am I going

56:24

to do ? Which

56:26

is what seemed to be happening what

56:29

the withdrawal portion of you

56:31

know , once you take away the alcohol , we don't know how to

56:33

behave . We've spent all

56:35

of our time being drunk that we no longer

56:37

know how to behave , and

56:39

so that was my problem

56:41

. Now . I didn't know how to behave , and

56:44

so I found ways to behave . I got

56:46

to be the scorekeeper . I

56:48

got to do things because I didn't

56:50

want to become addicted to my cell phone , because

56:52

it's one of the other , you know , I don't want to change

56:55

addictions , so then it was like , what

56:57

can I do to be of service ? And

56:59

so those are the things that I did . And

57:02

then , when it came time for the

57:05

COVID thing and Zoom , I ended

57:07

up becoming a service to the meetings

57:10

and learning how to run

57:12

the meetings and

57:14

figuring out the security systems

57:16

, because , you know , the

57:18

whole world gets switched over to Zoom . And then all these little

57:20

punks get switched over to Zoom and then they know

57:22

more than we do . And now you've

57:24

got , you know , a bunch of 10 year olds crashing

57:27

Zoom meetings and pissing us all off

57:29

. And you don't need to piss off a bunch of drunks

57:31

at six in the morning , because it's rough .

57:33

I feel bad for little fuckers .

57:39

Well , and I just kind of feel like you know , when I

57:41

was a kid we used to knock on the door and run

57:43

, you

57:45

know . Or call people and ask

57:47

if their refrigerator is running . They better catch it . Well

57:49

, you can't prank call anymore because you've got caller

57:52

ID and there's no . You know

57:54

, everybody's got these stupid ring doorbells . You

57:56

can't go knock the doors . Or you know you can't

57:58

go kick the aluminum trash

58:00

cans because we have plastic trash cans

58:02

. So what else are they going to do ? They're

58:05

, you know they're going to have to do something . So

58:07

, zoom's , they're harmless fun . It just pisses off

58:09

a bunch of us , though , and I just think it's

58:11

funny , because maybe they are one of us and

58:13

they're just coming prematurely , or maybe they're just

58:15

having a harmless prank , and you know

58:18

, and it's just evolved with the with

58:20

the time , you know , I don't know you

58:22

know , and the ball busters that are in those

58:24

rooms and it's

58:26

just great because we had , we had one today is

58:29

completely harmless and he just kept , you

58:31

know , he just kept 666 , and

58:33

it just streams

58:35

and streams and streams of 666

58:37

.

58:38

And you know , this one grumpy old bastard

58:40

, you know , I was like , well , we know Jake's favorite

58:42

number , and

58:45

you know , and then

58:47

he goes , somebody

58:49

else had gotten , you know , really frustrated

58:51

with it and he's like listen , love

58:55

and tolerance is our new , is our new thing . You

58:57

know , and maybe , maybe

58:59

his keyboard got stuck , I don't know . It

59:02

was just like you know how everybody down , Okay

59:06

, you know , and a little bit of ball

59:08

busting and everything was fine , you

59:10

know , but they were annoying , they're very

59:12

annoying and they drive me

59:14

nuts .

59:16

Well and the thing . Well , because you do a lot of the

59:18

security and I don't I don't do security

59:20

anymore . I do the screen

59:22

share and and you know , and I take care

59:24

of all of the Sunday , sunday morning stuff

59:26

. That's my assignment right now . But

59:30

you know , they have

59:33

to look at it as like , what kind of harmless pranks did

59:35

we do and can they that ? Can kids

59:37

today do the harmless pranks that we did ? So this

59:39

is to them it's harmless . But

59:41

you know , think about the person when you were ringing the doorbell

59:44

and running . Was it harmless to them ? When you woke them

59:46

up at two in the morning and you were ringing the doorbell 27

59:48

times ? No , they were pretty pissed , it's

59:51

. You know , I look at it going . It's the exact

59:53

same thing . They're just getting even with

59:55

me for the same shit that I did to somebody

59:57

else .

59:58

My mother always told me she was the shit's going

1:00:00

to come full circle . And

1:00:03

here we are .

1:00:05

Exactly , exactly .

1:00:08

I do have a question for you now , and

1:00:11

well , I have a couple of questions

1:00:13

for you because , you know , the zoom thing

1:00:16

has always been a hot button topic for

1:00:18

everybody that I've had on this show and everybody

1:00:20

that I talked to even before

1:00:22

I started this show . I

1:00:26

love zoom . You know , zoom is the reason

1:00:28

that I got sober , because I couldn't go

1:00:30

into a brick and mortar . I couldn't bring myself

1:00:32

. I would convince myself in

1:00:34

the 20 minutes that it would take , or the 10 minutes that it would

1:00:36

take , for me to drive through a brick and mortar . It was so much

1:00:38

easier for me to open up my laptop and I was in a much more

1:00:40

comfortable and relaxed setting

1:00:43

and I had these . I

1:00:46

call them my guardian angels . You know , they

1:00:48

don't know that I call them my guardian angels , but I had

1:00:50

this one sweet little old lady and

1:00:53

she was chairing on my first meeting and

1:00:55

she made me feel so relaxed and so comfortable

1:00:57

and she was so sweet and kind and she reminded me of

1:00:59

my grandmother . And then , after

1:01:02

that meeting , you know , I came back the next day because

1:01:05

I felt at peace and then this other

1:01:07

sweet little old lady was chairing and

1:01:10

I was like , oh my God , this is like I'm

1:01:12

going to grandma's house and I'm just going to sit

1:01:14

and I could just unpack my bullshit

1:01:16

and I could relax . And

1:01:19

then shortly thereafter I realized that they changed chairs

1:01:21

every day and it wasn't a room full of sweet little old

1:01:23

ladies , it was , you know , there was a little

1:01:25

room there too , and but

1:01:28

at that point , you know , those 48 hours

1:01:30

, I was nice and comfortable and I was relaxed . I was like

1:01:32

, okay , I could do this . You know , I kind of got to meet

1:01:35

everybody and then , and that's how I did it

1:01:37

. Now I love brick and mortar and

1:01:39

you know , and I found the things , the

1:01:42

caveats between the brick and mortar and the zoom

1:01:44

, so I can understand both sides of the fence , even though

1:01:46

I'm a zoom baby .

1:01:47

Right .

1:01:48

Or a zoomer . But however , you know , over

1:01:52

here they call us zoom babies and and

1:01:54

in other parts you know the country they

1:01:56

call us zoomers . And

1:01:58

you know , the

1:02:01

thing that I love about the brick and mortar is

1:02:03

the accountability . You

1:02:06

know , I can drive by somebody's house

1:02:08

and I could check on them or I could be

1:02:10

of service to somebody else . You

1:02:12

know , if they're having a problem I can mow their

1:02:14

lawn or I could plow their driveway . You know , because

1:02:17

here in New York we get snow and

1:02:20

you know , and I can bring cookies

1:02:22

and I can make coffee and

1:02:25

I can be the greeter , and

1:02:27

and on zoom

1:02:29

, yes , there's service positions

1:02:31

, you know . So you can secure the meeting , you can

1:02:33

chair the meeting , you can , you know , read

1:02:36

and do all those other things , but

1:02:38

you don't have that accountability . If somebody doesn't

1:02:40

show up at a brick and mortar , you

1:02:42

could drive by their house and kind of see

1:02:44

, but if somebody's

1:02:46

not on a zoom , you know they

1:02:48

could just shut their phone off and

1:02:51

you can't . Really there's no real way to keep

1:02:55

tabs on them , so to speak . You

1:02:58

know you can't drive by clansies

1:03:00

and see if their cars at the bar .

1:03:03

Right .

1:03:05

You know , yeah , but that is one of the problems

1:03:07

. I'm

1:03:09

struggling with that right now with one of my sponies

1:03:12

, and you know I

1:03:14

want to be able to hold them accountable but

1:03:16

it's really hard to do 2,500 miles away . And

1:03:20

then there's the fellowship . You know you can't go out and

1:03:22

have a higher coffee or lunch

1:03:24

or breakfast , you know , whatever it may be to

1:03:27

, and you know I can't go give you a hug as much

1:03:29

as I want to , I can't go give you a hug .

1:03:33

No , not for six more weeks , not for six

1:03:35

more weeks .

1:03:39

But you know those are the . Those are the things that I

1:03:41

get out of a brick and mortar that I really enjoy

1:03:43

, that I really like , but

1:03:45

also with my schedule and you know I run around 90

1:03:47

miles an hour with my hair on fire . I

1:03:50

can't always make a brick and mortar , you

1:03:52

know , but I do attend as many zoom meetings as I possibly

1:03:54

can and it has given me the foundation

1:03:57

and the majority of my sobriety has been through

1:03:59

zoom . Those

1:04:01

were , but I understand the

1:04:03

other side of the argument and I just wanted your take on

1:04:05

it .

1:04:06

Well , I

1:04:08

think the brick and mortar is a

1:04:10

great place Like . I think a mixture

1:04:13

of both of them is what I

1:04:16

see my future in recovery

1:04:18

to be , as a combination of both

1:04:20

. The other thing is that I

1:04:22

become lazy placent . It's easier

1:04:25

to open up the laptop

1:04:27

and , you know , find a zoom , meeting and and

1:04:30

and plug

1:04:32

. In that way I don't have to , you know

1:04:34

, get all dressed and put

1:04:36

makeup on and drive across town

1:04:39

. I can , you know , I can , just show up

1:04:41

and open up my laptop and go . What

1:04:43

we got going on here ? Can I find a big book

1:04:45

? Can I find a , you know whatever

1:04:48

? You know discussion , meeting , and

1:04:50

and go that way . But I agree with

1:04:52

you . You know , I remember

1:04:54

talking to my

1:04:56

friend Gail and

1:04:58

one of her sponsors , who

1:05:00

had more time sober than I did

1:05:02

, committed suicide and

1:05:05

her sponsor was was

1:05:08

, you know , here in town and you know Gail

1:05:11

and her were good friends , besides being the sponsor-sponsor

1:05:14

relationship . Gail

1:05:16

knew her husband was out of town

1:05:18

, wasn't able to reach her and

1:05:20

grabbed a newcomer , you know who was another

1:05:22

sponsor , and said come on , let's go do a , you

1:05:24

know a wellness check . And

1:05:27

then found her , you

1:05:30

know , went looking through the windows of the house

1:05:32

went because nobody . You know they kept calling . You

1:05:34

know people hadn't been able to reach him . You

1:05:36

know , when you know Del Mar says I haven't been

1:05:38

able to reach you , then I , and then the sponsor can't

1:05:41

reach you , then someone else can't reach you and they all get together

1:05:43

and they say we can't reach so and so

1:05:45

, and so Gail goes over there and

1:05:47

finds that you know , ends up calling the

1:05:49

police and confirm that she committed

1:05:51

suicide . Gail calls her husband

1:05:53

has all that information . We can't do that across the country

1:05:56

. I'm not going to know , I'm

1:05:58

not going to be the first to know that

1:06:00

. You know something's happened to one of my sponsors

1:06:02

, just like you're not either , and

1:06:05

you know that's the frustrating part of the

1:06:07

zoom . So we need to encourage our

1:06:09

you know , our a

1:06:12

family to go to both a combination

1:06:14

of brick and mortar and in

1:06:16

person meetings and

1:06:18

make sure that we have okay . So you know

1:06:21

who are some of the people that you know I

1:06:23

can reach out to you , but there is a problem with you . You

1:06:25

know what , if I do need to do an

1:06:27

intervention because you've fallen off and

1:06:30

are doing something stupid , you know , because

1:06:32

maybe if I had relapsed

1:06:34

that first time . If I had been

1:06:36

plugged into a sponsor , maybe she and my husband

1:06:38

had done an intervention before I took us both

1:06:40

down you know the yellow brick road

1:06:43

of you know stupidity and

1:06:46

avoided you know seven

1:06:49

more years of stupid drinking . You know , and

1:06:51

what have you . You

1:06:54

know , I don't , I don't know , but I

1:06:57

think it's really important that people do

1:06:59

both . But I think I

1:07:01

think zoom is super important . I met

1:07:03

a guy who was in his 90s

1:07:05

attending an AA meeting . He was in

1:07:07

a care facility and he said it was so

1:07:09

amazing for him to be able to get to a meeting , because

1:07:11

he couldn't go to a meeting anymore

1:07:14

and he missed the fellowship . He

1:07:16

wasn't going to drink because they were controlling everything

1:07:18

he was getting . It felt like he

1:07:20

was going to relapse , but he missed the people

1:07:22

. He missed the fellowship . And the people

1:07:25

that he's talking to they're not a , you

1:07:27

know , I don't want to call it a bunch of drawings , but they don't

1:07:29

think like we do and you can't have

1:07:31

that . You know that , that

1:07:34

that type of relationship , because

1:07:36

the difference between me

1:07:38

and like when I was , you know , when

1:07:40

I was drinking and I was going to church and stuff like

1:07:42

that , the bond that I have with the people at

1:07:44

church isn't the same level of bond

1:07:47

that I have with the people in the program . You

1:07:50

know I have a level of intimacy

1:07:53

with the people at the program that I don't

1:07:55

have with other people . You know my

1:07:57

neighbors next door . I've lived here for you

1:07:59

know , 15 years . My neighbors don't know as

1:08:02

much about me as you do and I've known you

1:08:04

for what ? Six months , seven , eight months , eight

1:08:06

months . Knowing you for eight months , you

1:08:08

know more about me than my neighbors next door do .

1:08:11

It's , it's just completely . It

1:08:13

baffles me . You know , the fellowship

1:08:15

and the foundations of my , you know

1:08:17

, I really , I really root myself into

1:08:20

the triad of AA , unity Fellowship

1:08:22

or Unity

1:08:25

service and recovery . And

1:08:27

you

1:08:29

know , because I cannot have conversations

1:08:31

with dormies and I cannot have conversations

1:08:33

with active people like I have with with

1:08:35

you guys , because nobody understands it , you

1:08:38

know , and it goes back to the doctor's opinion

1:08:40

and and

1:08:43

you know , and I love that story in the big book so

1:08:45

much because it talks about the obsession

1:08:47

of the mind and the allergy of

1:08:49

the body , and nobody understands that

1:08:51

because they haven't felt it .

1:08:54

Right .

1:08:55

And we know how each other's

1:08:57

thinks . You know , we know when

1:09:00

the squirrels are running in the cage or when

1:09:02

you know self

1:09:05

will run riot . You know , nobody

1:09:07

gets that because they haven't felt that , they don't

1:09:09

understand those things and that's why , you know , some

1:09:12

of the closest relationships that I have , you

1:09:14

know , are with people in the program

1:09:17

. You know , because they get me

1:09:19

and I can look into any

1:09:21

, any meeting I could go on to any

1:09:23

zoom meeting anywhere in the world and

1:09:26

I can go into any brick and mortar anywhere in the world

1:09:28

and feel at home because

1:09:30

they understand it . They understand that

1:09:33

I have a problem , they

1:09:36

can help me and that they have a problem and I can

1:09:38

help them through conversation

1:09:40

and through understanding , true understanding

1:09:43

. You know , I was so

1:09:45

grateful when I found out that my therapist was in

1:09:47

the program . I was so grateful that

1:09:49

he twisted

1:09:52

my arm , without twisting my arm , into

1:09:54

going to AA and then , after he

1:09:57

, after I'd gone to a couple of meetings , he's like

1:09:59

I knew you were an alcoholic

1:10:01

. He

1:10:05

goes because I'm an alcoholic . Oh

1:10:08

makes sense . He was funny

1:10:10

. Try a couple of any meetings , they're fun .

1:10:14

Okay .

1:10:17

But you know , that was

1:10:19

just . You

1:10:21

know something . And then you touched on complacency and

1:10:23

that was something that I just recently , you

1:10:25

and I had a conversation about me being complacent

1:10:28

while I'm on the meetings and in trying to

1:10:30

do all these things at the same time , because you

1:10:34

understand that I can't sit still , just

1:10:36

like I know that you can't sit still .

1:10:39

Here's my sketches from today's meeting

1:10:41

.

1:10:42

And yeah

1:10:45

, and you know , and that was something

1:10:47

that you know , at my , my extension course

1:10:50

I talk about the extension cord and I stole it from Mary

1:10:52

Beth and she laughs at me every time that I bring it up

1:10:54

because that's now mine . I've taken

1:10:56

it from her and she was very happy to give that

1:10:58

gift away to me . But my extension

1:11:00

cord was getting longer and longer because I had my camera

1:11:02

off , I was doing other things , I wasn't

1:11:05

plugged into the meeting and I was just . I was just a

1:11:07

seat , I

1:11:09

was just an absent seat in that little Brady

1:11:11

bunch square and you

1:11:14

know , and you guys helped me turn that around because

1:11:16

you understood , you guys understood when I brought that

1:11:18

problem up .

1:11:22

And it was exactly . I

1:11:26

sat here today because it's like , okay

1:11:29

, I talked to you about that

1:11:31

craziness , that it's like I got to do something

1:11:33

, I got to do something . I got to do something . I was like , okay

1:11:36

, I got to do something , I'm going to do it all today

1:11:38

. What am I going to do it all ? And so I just started

1:11:40

drawing little squares

1:11:42

and coloring them in one direction , then I

1:11:44

would tell the next one in another direction

1:11:46

and I could sit there and

1:11:49

then I start writing down things that my sponsors

1:11:51

saying or other people are saying , and it's

1:11:53

like what are my sponsors ? That

1:11:55

was good today . Why do I do the things

1:11:57

that I do that I do not ? Why do I do the

1:11:59

things that I do not want to do ? So

1:12:02

it's like , what

1:12:04

do you do ? Oh , you're making something out of rubber bands

1:12:07

. Or oh , you're writing all over cups .

1:12:08

No , this is actually an old timer

1:12:11

from one of my brick and mortars and he

1:12:13

does this at every meeting and

1:12:17

he throws the coffee cups out at the end

1:12:19

of the meeting and

1:12:22

a couple people . And I just keep this

1:12:24

on my desk and I just turn it like

1:12:26

a quarter turn every day and

1:12:28

it's got . But for the grace of God , go I one

1:12:30

day at a time , like go in , like God think

1:12:34

, keep it simple . He

1:12:38

writes all the little slogans on it . Some

1:12:40

people find it disgusting , but

1:12:43

I found it early on . After my

1:12:45

second or third brick and mortar I went

1:12:48

and I asked him . I said what do you do with those coffee cups ? He

1:12:50

goes , I throw them out . Okay

1:12:53

, and

1:12:56

then I need one of these things when I sit

1:12:58

on my desk and I'm pulling my hair out .

1:13:00

Exactly .

1:13:02

And you know , but that's something that he does and

1:13:04

you know . And then when you had mentioned doodling or something

1:13:07

, I started to look at it . Then I go , hmm .

1:13:10

Yeah , all right , I

1:13:12

just I just draw little sketches . I try

1:13:14

not to , you know . I try to keep

1:13:16

it really simple so that I can pay attention to

1:13:18

what's going on , and I try not to think like

1:13:20

I'm not trying to create anything . I'm just

1:13:22

doing stuff with line so that I'm , you

1:13:25

know , my brain is my , the

1:13:27

, the energy that

1:13:29

my hands want to have is

1:13:32

being used in a way that

1:13:34

my mind can still continue to be present

1:13:36

. But that that hand

1:13:38

energy that you know , the hands , what

1:13:41

is it ? You know Italians , you know or not

1:13:43

my German , but you know we got to talk with

1:13:45

our hands .

1:13:46

I understand .

1:13:47

Yeah , I got to talk with my hands , and

1:13:49

my hands can't do anything as I'm listening to

1:13:51

somebody , because it's not all about me

1:13:53

for that hour , hour and a half that I'm in a meeting

1:13:55

, it's not all about me , and so my

1:13:57

hands have to do something , and

1:13:59

so it's going to do something , and it's

1:14:02

going to do it with a pencil or a pen

1:14:04

, because I could always pick up my phone and

1:14:06

go shopping . I can always

1:14:08

go do something else , and I don't want

1:14:10

to . I want to be here . This is the best , the

1:14:13

highest and best used of my time is me being sober

1:14:15

today , not shopping for a new dress on

1:14:17

Amazon or on Macy's or

1:14:19

Amazon for gun parts

1:14:21

. Should

1:14:30

we tell them the gun part joke ?

1:14:32

We should tell them the gun part joke .

1:14:34

So with my husband , whenever

1:14:37

we get a check in the mail or any money coming

1:14:39

in that's , you know , comes

1:14:42

in , my husband goes oh , look , money for gun parts

1:14:44

. And I always have a tendency to take

1:14:47

money super seriously and I get annoyed

1:14:49

, and so I managed to mention this to

1:14:51

Richard . So now he and my husband

1:14:53

are poking me with that , saying is like oh

1:14:55

, is this for gun parts ? And it's

1:14:57

like so I now refer

1:15:00

to my husband as the donkey and Richard

1:15:02

is now starting to become donkey junior .

1:15:05

And I I'm an avid gun guy , you

1:15:08

know , being in the military , you

1:15:10

know , and law enforcement training and things like

1:15:12

that that I've done . I have grown an affliction

1:15:15

for guns . And

1:15:17

what do we do

1:15:19

when we have a hobby ? We buy

1:15:21

stuff for our hobby . Now

1:15:25

that we brought Bill up again , I wanted

1:15:28

to , you know . I wanted to ask , because

1:15:30

I don't find too

1:15:32

many couples , you know

1:15:34

, or too many married people that both

1:15:37

work the same program . And

1:15:41

how do you guys manage ? I know a few

1:15:43

, I do know a few , but

1:15:45

how do you guys ? Do you guys keep it

1:15:48

separate ? Do you guys intermingle

1:15:50

? Do you guys attend the

1:15:52

same meetings ? Do you just keep it completely

1:15:55

private and separate ? Do

1:15:57

you ? How do you guys ? Does

1:15:59

AA come up in an everyday conversation

1:16:01

for you guys , or is it just not

1:16:03

not so much ?

1:16:06

Um , yes , yes , no , yes

1:16:08

, no , um . So so

1:16:10

his program is his program , my

1:16:12

program is my program . Um

1:16:18

and um , we're , we

1:16:20

can both . If we go to with the same brick and mortar

1:16:22

meeting together , we don't sit next to each other

1:16:24

. He goes and sits where

1:16:26

he wants to . I go sit where I want to , um

1:16:29

, you know , we're , we're two

1:16:31

separate people at a meeting . Um

1:16:34

, um , because what

1:16:36

we both we need , we each need

1:16:38

something different so that

1:16:40

we can come back together , and

1:16:43

so I don't work his program

1:16:45

and it's , you know , and that's really hard being married

1:16:47

to somebody that way , cause you know

1:16:49

you want to go work someone else's program

1:16:52

for them and tell them what they're not doing right . But

1:16:54

it's not about his

1:16:57

sobriety , is about him , it's not about me

1:16:59

. I know today that if

1:17:02

he were to go back out , you

1:17:04

know God forbid that I'm

1:17:06

not going with him . This is my program

1:17:09

, this is my fight from my life and I'm

1:17:11

staying here in these chairs . He

1:17:13

goes . I'm sorry , um

1:17:15

, I'll do everything I can to help him , but I also

1:17:17

know that I can't save somebody who wants to drink

1:17:20

. I can , I can only help them when they want

1:17:22

to come back , and

1:17:25

so I will tell him occasionally if you

1:17:27

think you might need to go to a meeting , um

1:17:30

, but it's , it's his , it's

1:17:33

his sobriety , like , I can't tell

1:17:35

you , I can't tell you if he's worked his steps . I

1:17:37

can't tell you who his sponsor is right now . Um

1:17:40

, I don't know , cause , it's

1:17:42

not my business , it's his program . Um

1:17:45

, you know I try

1:17:47

. You know I try not to . You know I try not to . You know I try not to

1:17:50

not to mix it . I'm a . If

1:17:52

I do find a good meeting , I say , hey , you might want to

1:17:54

try this meeting with me . I really liked it , and

1:17:57

you know . And , um , and he'll go

1:17:59

with me . Um , he has no , no objection

1:18:02

about that . But you

1:18:04

know he'll turn around occasionally and go and sometimes he'll

1:18:07

kill it . He'll turn around . You might need to call your

1:18:09

sponsor , you know , um , but

1:18:11

I , but I'll turn around and say I got

1:18:13

to get this , I got to get this off

1:18:15

my chest and I need to talk to you about this

1:18:17

is da , da , da , da , da , da

1:18:19

, da , da , da , da , da , da , da , da , da , da , and

1:18:21

, and I'm the type of person that um that I need to ext

1:18:23

, extrovert all my problem . If there's

1:18:26

something that comes up that comes up that's bothering

1:18:28

me , I need to get it

1:18:30

out and out of my mouth and out

1:18:32

of my brain and out into the open and

1:18:35

, and just verbally

1:18:38

, you

1:18:40

know , whatever the hell it is , and then he'll turn

1:18:42

around and go , are you done ? And I'm like , yeah

1:18:44

, he goes . Okay , good , can we go have dinner now ? Can

1:18:46

we go do this ? And

1:18:48

he knows not to take it personal , that

1:18:51

my shit's my shit . And

1:18:55

so we work our programs completely

1:18:58

separately . But

1:19:00

we like going to meetings together , but we're

1:19:03

not going to sit together . And

1:19:06

you know like I would love for him

1:19:08

to come to the 6 am and in

1:19:11

fact I'm going to drag him there for his birthday . He doesn't

1:19:13

know that yet , but I'm going to drag him there for

1:19:15

his birthday . But

1:19:18

you know he , you know

1:19:20

he'll log in and do a Zoom

1:19:22

meeting and he'll come out and goes . I just got done

1:19:25

with the big book study and I'm like , oh , I had no idea

1:19:27

what you were doing in your office . Okay , he

1:19:29

could have been buying gun parts , you know . He's

1:19:34

like , yeah , yeah , he'll just turn around

1:19:36

and do a meeting and I knew

1:19:38

nothing about it because we don't

1:19:40

, we don't . But but we'll talk program

1:19:42

. We'll talk , you know , about

1:19:45

something that's going on and how it works in our program

1:19:47

, but we don't do steps together , we don't

1:19:49

none of that kind of stuff . And

1:19:54

I think that's the way it was in the first

1:19:56

time we got sober . Is we , would , you know

1:19:58

, like ? We met in a meeting and

1:20:00

I'm

1:20:03

trying to remember what his first sponsors said

1:20:05

, because his first sponsor was probably one of the

1:20:08

most amazing spiritual people

1:20:10

I had ever . I had ever met and

1:20:13

Don had said you've got to keep your

1:20:15

higher power first , your

1:20:17

sobriety second

1:20:19

, and then your marriage is third . And

1:20:22

if you put them in any other order , you're

1:20:25

going to your marriage isn't going to work . And

1:20:28

you know , we , we tried mixing the order

1:20:30

up , you know , and we put , we

1:20:33

put ourselves first , of course , which

1:20:35

is part of that relapse thing , and

1:20:37

somehow we managed to stay together . I

1:20:40

mean , I can't tell you how that

1:20:42

was . I always make jokes

1:20:44

because it's like I don't want to give up what's yours and

1:20:47

you don't want to give up what's mine , and so we're going to

1:20:49

stay together because I'm not going to split the damn property

1:20:51

with you and I'm not going to kill you because I don't want to go

1:20:53

to jail , and

1:20:56

so so I say I think I stayed married

1:20:58

for pure greed , you know , and I

1:21:00

really do love the guy , so don't take that the wrong

1:21:02

way . But it's like I'm not giving him

1:21:04

his shit , it's my shit . Now I've

1:21:06

been married too long .

1:21:10

I'm going to switch gears a little bit and I'm going to be completely

1:21:13

selfish and I'm going to ask you a couple of questions

1:21:15

about your business .

1:21:16

You got it .

1:21:18

How long have you owned your own accounting

1:21:20

firm ?

1:21:22

I have been self employed for

1:21:24

this business

1:21:27

for 18 years . I

1:21:29

had a firm before that with

1:21:31

three other women or two other women

1:21:33

, but I've basically been in

1:21:35

self employed for about the last 20

1:21:37

, you know , 21 years , but

1:21:40

this firm's been around for 18 years by itself .

1:21:48

And how do you manage your business as

1:21:51

an alcoholic ? You know , because there is

1:21:53

that . You know there's

1:21:56

that fine line , you know that

1:21:59

we've had conversations about

1:22:01

. And you

1:22:03

know , because there's , you have to do stuff , you

1:22:05

have to take control of some things and

1:22:08

but you also cannot take control

1:22:10

. You have to turn control over in the program

1:22:12

and there's that , there's that limbo

1:22:14

, there's that backwards

1:22:16

, you know type of thing that I

1:22:20

mean we're , we're a different

1:22:22

set of special people .

1:22:23

you know business owners and entrepreneurs and

1:22:25

yeah

1:22:28

, the thing is with being an entrepreneur

1:22:30

where , if it's , if

1:22:32

I had a day job and I just had

1:22:35

to show up , my boss pissed me off

1:22:37

I could turn around and go . You know , my boss pissed me

1:22:39

off and it's not that big of a deal . I'll

1:22:41

let it go when I get home and I can move

1:22:43

on . But the problem is when you're , when

1:22:46

your employees piss you off it . It

1:22:48

affects your overall livelihood . If

1:22:50

the employee pisses you off , is the client

1:22:52

pissed off ? Is the money going to come in ? How is

1:22:54

it going to affect it ? And

1:22:57

I have to say that sometimes I manage

1:22:59

it well and sometimes I don't . I mean , I

1:23:01

have made the mistake of letting employees stay

1:23:03

on when I should have been . You know faster

1:23:05

to fire . That's

1:23:07

probably my thing is that I'm way more compassionate

1:23:10

than I should be , and

1:23:12

I should . I should turn around

1:23:14

and go . You know what . You're not good for my business and you're

1:23:16

not doing what I need you to do Goodbye . And

1:23:19

instead I go . Oh , this person's

1:23:21

this . You know what I really want to have

1:23:23

this relationship with this person , and so

1:23:25

I let people stay longer than I should

1:23:27

fit me in the butt A

1:23:30

few too many times what

1:23:32

I do is is I really try to to

1:23:34

pray like if I'm having a staff meeting and especially

1:23:37

if I know I have to talk to somebody about

1:23:39

a behavior you know ? I'll ask my higher

1:23:42

power how do I handle

1:23:44

this ? You know , please use me as

1:23:46

a conduit to help me

1:23:48

say what needs to be said , where

1:23:51

I'm not the asshole that

1:23:53

I want to be , and

1:23:55

help me to say it in a way that's

1:23:57

. That's loving , you

1:24:00

know , and even

1:24:02

if it's , you know , even

1:24:05

if it's some letting somebody go , I , you

1:24:07

know , I let somebody go and

1:24:09

you know , a

1:24:11

year ago , a year and a half ago , and just

1:24:13

said this isn't working for me . You know , here's your

1:24:16

check . You didn't do it was supposed to be done , you

1:24:18

know , goodbye , and he kept going , but but

1:24:20

and I'm like , no , goodbye , I'm done

1:24:22

, I'm done . I've given you

1:24:24

multiple chances and and

1:24:27

you've let me down too many times , goodbye , and

1:24:30

you know , and I didn't

1:24:32

feel and and I normally feel

1:24:34

bad for a while and

1:24:36

I didn't . He said I was really angry and

1:24:39

then I just turned around and said you know what my job

1:24:42

now is to learn not to do this anymore . And

1:24:44

so that's why I go . When , when I said earlier

1:24:46

, is my job is to figure out how to be the

1:24:48

better person . How can I be better than I

1:24:50

was yesterday ? How can I be

1:24:53

better at managing this business

1:24:55

Because I I'm a numbers

1:24:57

geek . I want to sit there and I'm a and I'm a

1:24:59

law geek . Is is so I want to sit

1:25:01

there and and study the law portion

1:25:04

of it and figure out that portion of it and

1:25:06

the numbers . I don't want to really deal with the

1:25:08

people portion of it . I , you

1:25:10

know , I love to talk to people and I want

1:25:13

to be able to help you , but I don't

1:25:15

want to manage people , and that's the thing that

1:25:17

I absolutely hate . I mean , if I could get a

1:25:19

you know , hey God , I could really

1:25:21

use a you know , a you know an operations

1:25:23

manager , because I sure as hell don't want to

1:25:25

be that person . It is not

1:25:27

my strong suit . Let me go . Let me go sell

1:25:30

accounting services . Let me go sell bookkeeping

1:25:32

services . I , I'm

1:25:34

good at that portion . Let me go negotiate with the

1:25:36

IRS , but get the damn people

1:25:38

out of the way because they just pissed me off

1:25:41

, you know .

1:25:42

Yeah , I'm the introverted extrovert

1:25:45

, you know I . I love the people

1:25:47

that that come into my that

1:25:49

come into my business . I love the

1:25:52

staff and I love the employees , but I don't want

1:25:54

any of them to talk to me .

1:26:00

See , my thing is like we can sit in my

1:26:02

office and have great conversations about

1:26:04

you know , what the new law is or

1:26:06

what this . And then I just said do you

1:26:09

guys not have any work to do ? Because I have some

1:26:11

I can give you now . Get the hell out of here

1:26:13

. And they all go . Oh , because

1:26:15

the door's always been open . And

1:26:17

I finally turned around and said if you have nothing

1:26:20

to do , I will give you something

1:26:22

. Which one , if you want to learn how to do

1:26:24

this type of tax return ? And none of them

1:26:26

do , because I get all the hard stuff , and

1:26:28

so they're , they all go scrambling out . Or

1:26:30

which of you wants to go work on this certification

1:26:32

, because I have a new certification you could go get

1:26:34

. And they're like no , no , no , and they go , they all

1:26:37

go running out . It's like get the

1:26:39

hell out of here . You know , unless you've got , you know

1:26:41

, unless you're reporting that you just brought in a new client

1:26:43

in a new sale , get out of here .

1:26:45

How did how did that ? Because it

1:26:48

overlapped , you know , in between your active

1:26:50

, your active timing and your second recovery

1:26:52

. How did how did how ? Was

1:26:54

the business affected , especially in

1:26:57

that first window where you had the fog , and

1:26:59

you know that first 90 days coming

1:27:01

back , and you know , and then I'm

1:27:03

sure there was a little bit of a period of white knuckling

1:27:06

, you know , and and

1:27:08

those stresses , and you

1:27:11

know all that stuff that shows up , that continues

1:27:13

to show up , especially when you're , you know

1:27:15

, newly recovered and you're like , oh fuck , I

1:27:17

got to deal with this .

1:27:22

I pretended a lot . I

1:27:25

faked it till I make it . The

1:27:29

good news is that my office was smaller

1:27:31

then than it is now . There

1:27:34

were really only three of us there

1:27:37

the

1:27:41

admin person and

1:27:44

my cousin who also

1:27:46

works for me , so he knew about me

1:27:48

being in recovery . He

1:27:51

would cover the office for me so I could go

1:27:53

to meetings and be gone longer than the way

1:27:57

in normal lunch period . Was that

1:28:02

made it easier for me ? The

1:28:05

problem is my finances , because

1:28:07

I would take care of the client's stuff , but

1:28:10

my finances . I wasn't invoicing

1:28:12

clients , I

1:28:17

wasn't reconciling my own set of accounts

1:28:19

. I was borrowing personal money to throw

1:28:22

into the business to cover the shortfalls

1:28:24

, because I

1:28:28

wasn't doing what I needed to do . As far as

1:28:30

that goes , the

1:28:34

systems inside the office weren't

1:28:36

what they should have been , so people weren't

1:28:38

being , as

1:28:40

you change one admin to another admin

1:28:43

, the training didn't

1:28:45

happen . We

1:28:49

would end up with the same types of problems over

1:28:51

and over again . When you realize

1:28:53

it's like oh , this all falls on me and

1:28:55

if I don't fix this , it's never going to

1:28:57

be fixed . How do I learn

1:29:00

how to fix this ? What do I

1:29:02

need to discover about me that I don't

1:29:04

like ? The other thing , too , is you

1:29:06

have to look at your life . What is it that you don't like

1:29:08

to do ? Can I hire somebody

1:29:11

to do this for me ? If

1:29:13

I don't like X and it has

1:29:15

to be done , can I trade with somebody

1:29:17

to do this for me ? I'll

1:29:20

do this if you do that or I'll pay you to

1:29:22

do this . That's what it became

1:29:24

, as I started to discover I don't like to do

1:29:26

this . Paul does

1:29:28

not like sales . He

1:29:36

won't sell , but he'll

1:29:39

deal with the unhappy

1:29:41

clients . It's like , oh , go , deal with

1:29:43

this person . We mesh with each other . I

1:29:46

find who will do what and who won't . There's

1:29:49

just different things that I don't want to do and other

1:29:51

people will do that . That's what you try to do as a business

1:29:53

owner is find someone who will do what you don't

1:29:55

like to do and you go

1:29:58

do the other hard things that you're really

1:30:00

good at . No

1:30:04

, you have a rule right , but you won for school . Thank

1:30:07

you , Love you too . You

1:30:11

will let it that out .

1:30:14

Yes , not me . I

1:30:20

sent it out to somebody to do

1:30:22

the next .

1:30:24

That's good . Not everybody should

1:30:26

know that my 13-year-old could be referring to a bunch .

1:30:29

Oh , I didn't hear that .

1:30:30

Oh , you didn't hear that . Oh , you missed that . Yes

1:30:32

, my 13-year-old referred to me as a bunch . Yes

1:30:36

, I decided that there are certain things that I just don't

1:30:38

care about . I'd rather yes .

1:30:43

I think this show was something that I didn't care to

1:30:45

do . I tried it once and I realized I didn't like it

1:30:47

. Now I sell it out . People

1:30:50

at Resident are fantastic . I highly recommend

1:30:52

them when you do start your

1:30:54

show .

1:30:55

I'm starting my show really soon , don't worry , I

1:30:58

got to get that going . It

1:31:00

probably won't be this month , it'll probably be September

1:31:02

.

1:31:04

Yes , and the guys that resonate

1:31:06

, and they don't sponsor the show , they don't do anything

1:31:08

like that . This is just me sending

1:31:10

them some love . They're fantastic , they're

1:31:13

not that expensive and they deal with all

1:31:15

the bullshit and it's like a three-day turnaround .

1:31:18

Nice .

1:31:19

Shows are 100 times better

1:31:21

than if you try to do it with Pro Tools or Logic

1:31:23

or any of those softwares that I attempted

1:31:26

to do myself .

1:31:28

No , no , no See , that's what I said . What

1:31:30

I said you have to find out what you're

1:31:32

good at and what you like to do and

1:31:34

what you don't like to do . If you don't like

1:31:36

to do something , don't do it . Go find

1:31:38

someone else who'll do it and go do what's

1:31:41

going to make you money . That's why I always tell

1:31:43

people who don't want to pay

1:31:45

for bookkeeping it's like your

1:31:47

bookkeeping doesn't make you money . What

1:31:49

makes you money is your sales or your design

1:31:51

work or your engineering work or whatever

1:31:54

. Yeah , you might be able to do the bookkeeping

1:31:56

, but are

1:31:59

you going to the two hours

1:32:01

that you spent doing that ? How much

1:32:03

money did you make in ?

1:32:04

an hour .

1:32:04

What you made $500 an hour , $1,000

1:32:07

an hour doing engineering design work , whatever it

1:32:09

is . What do you want to do that ? What

1:32:11

do you want to do what I do for $250

1:32:14

? You choose .

1:32:15

It fucking sucks . I do not

1:32:17

ever want to do what you do . I tried it . Quickbooks

1:32:20

is a foreign thing to

1:32:22

me . It doesn't make any sense in the

1:32:25

world .

1:32:26

I could play a game .

1:32:29

I can't operate QuickBooks . Trust

1:32:31

me .

1:32:39

There were some things in the way the accounting

1:32:41

software works . I sat there the other day trying to do

1:32:43

something and I

1:32:45

kept putting it in and I kept doing a

1:32:47

journal and she's wrong . And I sat there going , what the

1:32:49

hell am I doing ? I'm like , oh , I put

1:32:51

the internet out of the same account , I put a moron

1:32:54

. I've been doing this for 18 years but I

1:32:56

kept going why are these numbers not changing

1:32:58

? I'm like , what ? are

1:33:01

you moron . You

1:33:06

just sit there and shake your head . It's like grabbing

1:33:08

the wrong wrench and then

1:33:10

grabbing the same wrong wrench again and

1:33:12

you're sitting there going why is this not working ? Then

1:33:14

realize , oh , you didn't pick up the right one the second time . You're

1:33:17

a nutty , it's like .

1:33:21

It's usually when I start saying four letter

1:33:23

words and then my son repeats

1:33:25

them . Then

1:33:28

I swear , because he started swearing .

1:33:32

Hence my daughter calling me

1:33:35

what she called me , and I'm just like whatever

1:33:37

. It's not an argument

1:33:39

I want to have . I'm

1:33:41

not going to argue with you . She

1:33:46

doesn't test at me . We made fun of each other . That's

1:33:48

the other thing . In my house we're really good at

1:33:50

making jokes at each other . I'm trying

1:33:52

to teach everybody to have a sense of humor . We

1:33:58

all make fun of each other because

1:34:00

you have to be able to go out into that world and laugh

1:34:03

at yourself , because it's either

1:34:05

that or you're going to be mad at yourself and you're going to be

1:34:07

crying . If you learn at

1:34:09

a young age to laugh at yourself , it's

1:34:11

a lot easier . I think it'd be a lot easier

1:34:13

to deal with the stress and anxiety

1:34:15

of life . If you can laugh at yourself , You're

1:34:18

less likely to be beating up on yourself when something goes

1:34:21

wrong , because we all know stuff

1:34:23

is going to go wrong . We all know

1:34:25

that crap is going to happen

1:34:27

and you're going to make a fool out of

1:34:29

yourself . If you can laugh at yourself for

1:34:31

making a fool out of yourself , it's

1:34:33

like oh well , shit happens

1:34:36

.

1:34:37

So much more comfortable after

1:34:39

I figured that out .

1:34:43

I went to go make a public

1:34:45

speaking . I actually had to go speak someplace

1:34:47

, which is actually something I enjoy . It

1:34:51

was a new presentation for me . I

1:34:53

had no experience with it , other than practicing

1:34:55

it a couple of times . The

1:34:59

time that he had typed in the invitation

1:35:01

and the time on the flyer were two

1:35:03

different things . I

1:35:06

showed up a half an hour late

1:35:08

. I showed up at the time that

1:35:10

I wanted to be there , but

1:35:12

it was a half an hour late . He

1:35:15

was already there . So

1:35:18

the stress of that and the anxiety

1:35:21

of that if you think about it back in the old

1:35:23

days , that would have been something to drink over

1:35:25

Holy cow . Then

1:35:28

this is the first time giving it a presentation

1:35:31

. Do

1:35:35

I know my shit well enough , because this is

1:35:37

a new product for our company ? Do

1:35:40

I know it well enough ? Actually

1:35:43

, when I'm

1:35:45

doing something in my business and it's working

1:35:48

for me , but I'm not that good

1:35:51

at it it comes with anxiety

1:35:53

. Change brings anxiety . I've

1:35:57

got the anxiety of the speaking gig . I've

1:35:59

got the anxiety of the product being new . Then

1:36:02

I got the anxiety of

1:36:05

the wrong time . I

1:36:07

went in there and I brought my husband with

1:36:09

me and I said I want you to come with me when

1:36:12

I get nervous . I talk really fast

1:36:14

. I'm like if I'm talking fast , his

1:36:16

hands signal me , so I know to slow down

1:36:18

. I

1:36:21

miss my opening jokes because one

1:36:24

of the first things you do when you talk to an audience

1:36:26

is you try and come up with some opening jokes to get

1:36:28

them to relax , to get you to relax . I

1:36:31

didn't even get to do those , I

1:36:33

just went right into the presentation

1:36:36

and I managed to nail it . I managed

1:36:38

to do a really good job . I

1:36:42

was able to laugh at myself going

1:36:44

. Normally I'm such the control

1:36:47

freak . The control freak of me needs to be there

1:36:49

early and I couldn't even be there early

1:36:51

. That was my opening joke . I

1:36:55

was able to do it and not

1:36:57

turn around and go oh shit

1:36:59

, I know I need a drink . It was like no

1:37:01

, I nailed it . I felt really confident

1:37:03

. I'm like you know what ? This

1:37:06

was great for the first time , yeah , but the

1:37:08

late start sucked . You know what ? I

1:37:10

can do this again . I can do this again next week

1:37:12

. If someone asked me to

1:37:14

, I got it down . Now I can do it . I

1:37:19

could laugh about being yeah , evidently

1:37:21

I don't know how to read two different documents

1:37:23

. I can only grab one . I

1:37:25

told my admin , from now on she's responsible

1:37:27

for verbally confirming every appointment I

1:37:29

have , so I show up on time because I

1:37:32

don't like being late . What

1:37:39

else you got ?

1:37:41

That's all I got . Sharon

1:37:44

, I want to thank you so much for doing this . I really

1:37:46

appreciate it . I love you . You

1:37:49

crack me up . I love that you're always

1:37:51

there every time I call and

1:37:53

thank you for picking up the phone . And

1:37:56

I love it when you call

1:37:58

me , because we

1:38:00

always end up laughing .

1:38:03

Oh , tell me about Puddin .

1:38:06

Puddin was fantastic . He was everything

1:38:08

and anything that I could possibly imagine

1:38:11

or think that he would be , minus

1:38:13

the Southern draw .

1:38:15

Okay .

1:38:16

He did not have a Southern draw , but he looked

1:38:19

exactly how I thought he would look . He

1:38:22

drove the truck that I thought he was going to drive

1:38:25

. He

1:38:28

did all the things that I wanted him to

1:38:31

do . He apparently

1:38:34

is a collector and an advocate for old

1:38:36

school Coleman Lanterns I

1:38:39

found that out and he is

1:38:41

anything and everything

1:38:44

that you could think of a woodchuck being .

1:38:46

Oh , that's funny . Now , did Puddin

1:38:48

come from a family name or a military

1:38:50

name , or ?

1:38:52

No idea .

1:38:53

No , idea , no . You have to hang around him and find

1:38:55

out , okay .

1:38:58

I'm going to have to pry that box open a little bit

1:39:00

more , vanilla Puddin , by the way .

1:39:02

Okay , that's not true . That

1:39:07

became my walking meditation . When

1:39:09

I was done talking to you during

1:39:11

lunch , I grabbed Paul . I said come walk

1:39:14

with me on my walk . I told him

1:39:16

the story and the two of us were just laughing

1:39:18

, just laughing down the sidewalk

1:39:20

when we were .

1:39:21

It made my fucking day . Hey

1:39:25

, this is Puddin . He's

1:39:28

up on Saturday , all right , what did

1:39:30

you say ? What did you

1:39:32

say your name was again Puddin .

1:39:34

Yeah .

1:39:39

And I met him down at the Rod and Gun Club and I was like

1:39:41

he's here , you

1:39:45

got to be just trying .

1:39:47

That's great . That's great . So

1:39:50

just a sadmer who's been transplanted to New

1:39:52

York might , as the drive just grew up in New

1:39:54

York and somehow the Puddin got

1:39:56

moved to New York which is not what you would think

1:39:58

it be .

1:39:59

Yeah , and then the license plate I

1:40:02

envisioned , like Deer Slayer , being his custom