September 4, 2024 • 39 mins
2024 1046 Michel M shares her experience of growing up in a public but dysfunctional family where public shaming was a norm as related to her issues with eating disorders and alcoholism, struggling with her addiction issues in recovery to finding a life of freedom and joy today.
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Good morning, Rusty Alcoholic.
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And I'm Tim and I'm an alcoholic and this is Children of Chaos.
This morning we have got a special guest with us, Michelle.
There's not much that we haven't talked about over the years, right Michelle?
I think we've, we have covered so much.
Yes, absolutely.
Strangely enough, in all that time, as far as listening to your story in a meeting, I
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don't know that I've ever heard your story in a meeting.
I've spoken a few times, but at the place that I am right now, my recovery, it's almost
like a new story.
And so it's the perspective of looking back and the work that I'm doing today.
So it's like the first time.
For those of you that haven't been in recovery long or have not ever been in recovery and
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are listening in to see what it's all about, things will change.
Life changes and it doesn't necessarily just change in the beginning, does it?
No, no.
I've been at this since 1987 and it takes what it takes and it's taken a lot of time.
But I can honestly tell you, as I sit here today, I have never felt this peace that I
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feel today.
Wow, that's wonderful.
And she just told you how long she's been here and I've been here since 83.
So you can imagine how many meetings we've set in together, right?
Oh, yeah, absolutely.
Almost daily.
Yeah.
You know, in our little room and then, you know, with COVID and changes and so many things.
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But it's been, and we've had several one-on-ones.
So it's a real honor to be here because I know that I can be authentic and I can be
heard and hopefully my story will resonate with someone.
I know it will.
So why don't you go ahead?
Okay, thank you.
Hello everyone.
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My name's Michelle.
I am a recovering alcoholic compulsive eater bulimic and codependent.
So the only thing I don't have my alphabet is DEA.
So it is a real honor to be here.
My sobriety date this time is September 1st, 2003.
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I have had six of them since 1983.
I just celebrated seven months of abstinence from compulsive eating and bulimia.
And that was after an 11-year relapse and I had nine years of back-to-back abstinence
prior to that.
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So there's been a lot of work.
There's been a lot of work.
But I guess where I really want to start is, and something that I'm really starting to
appreciate more and more as I work on this journey, is, you know, it's been real commonplace
for me to blame my parents for just about everything.
And I don't see that today.
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And it's taken work.
But I was born in California in a little beach town called Santa Cruz.
It was small.
I believe that my parents kind of had an arranged marriage.
It was two prominent families that were good friends that happened to have daughters and
sons the same age.
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And so my parents were married and neither of them had any skills whatsoever.
And it's interesting because my father was movie star handsome and my mother is beautiful.
And my father was the assemblyman for that area for several, several years.
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And he was an attorney and his father was a district attorney.
And then on the other side of the family, my grandfather was the hospital pioneer of
that area.
And I say this just because we were big fish in a small pond.
But because my father was in elected office, our life was very public.
So Look Good was critical.
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It didn't matter what was going on on the inside.
On the outside, it was campaign brochure beautiful.
You know, and on the inside, it wasn't so great.
My mom threatened to leave my my dad when I was when I was still incubating.
They were back and forth constantly.
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They didn't have skills.
They didn't know what they were doing.
They were kind of thrown into this this marriage.
And then I come along.
And the way I grew up, my mother was my terrorist.
I'm going to just say it right there.
She was my terrorist.
I'll get to what it's like now.
But then she was my terrorist.
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And I kind of became her her punching bag for what was going on in the marriage.
And the biggest message that I got in this public life was, you're fat.
I'm not feeding myself.
I'm fat.
You have to uphold the image.
We are representing the state of California.
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And if you are fat, you are not lovable.
Along comes my sister 11 months later.
So I'm kind of overweight, a little withdrawn, and I'm four years old here.
And so we're growing up together and she's polar opposite.
She's skinny.
She's crazy.
She's wild.
I mean, how we could be related, I have no idea.
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But what what happened was, is that my family's discipline plan was shame will shame you into
acting right.
We'll shame you.
And so shame didn't only happen behind closed doors, it happened in public.
And I was also given different food than my sister.
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I had to wear different clothes.
I was set apart.
And so I learned at a really young age, I was different.
I wasn't worthy, not because of what I did, but because who I was.
I also learned about scarcity and competition.
I think one of the interweaving threads of that is inconsistency, because you never knew
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what you were going to get.
My mom, I don't want to diagnose her as bipolar, but I will say that she had just, you know,
you just never knew.
So I grew up in that, that literally shaped the way I saw myself, the way I saw the world
and the way I acted.
And my first memory of food is really vague.
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I just knew, I knew I was different and I always wanted what I couldn't have.
You know, I couldn't have bread, I couldn't have butter, I couldn't have all those things.
So I gravitated to what I, what I couldn't have, but it was always in secret.
So I learned really early how to hide.
And hiding became a coping mechanism.
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And my hero was Mighty Mouse.
And I listened to the standard music on my little record player and I read, I read voraciously.
I mean, I was reading stuff that way beyond my years, but it was my escape.
And I will tell you, as a result of that, I've got a great vocabulary, I'm wicked smart,
I can communicate well and articulate well, which also means I can bullshit with the best
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of them.
You know, and that's a blessing and a curse because it works in my career, but it has
failed me in recovery.
So where alcohol comes in now is that, you know, here I'm learning how to, I'm learning
how to hide.
We had this game called sneak, where we would sneak food in the middle of the night.
I mean, I can just see the writing on the wall, but my dad was a wine collector and
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wine was a big deal in my family.
So liquor was always around.
I've got Irish Catholics on one side, Roman Catholics on the other.
We had our own family priest and he drank more than anybody.
So drinking was a big deal, but I never thought of it as anything unusual.
But the first time I consciously remember taking a drink, I was like 14, overweight,
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no confidence whatsoever.
I'm on this beach with this friend of mine, who my parents, as they came from the other
side of the track.
And there was this kid, scrawny little like Gomer Pyle kid, who had this bottle of Andre
Colduck.
So my other side of the track friends try it and she's like, oh, we gotta go meet this
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guy.
He's got booze.
I'm like, okay.
You know?
So it came my turn and I took a sip of this Andre Colduck and something magical happened.
I went from Fat Albert to Marsha Brady in five seconds and Gomer Pyle turned to David
Cassidy.
And it was literally like that.
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I went from black and white to Technicolor Dolby.
It was something that I will never forget, ever.
I chased that for 40 years.
I did and I got smashed.
My friend dropped me off at home, but it kind of kicked me out of the car.
We told my parents that I had heat stroke and, you know, they didn't say anything about
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it.
But that's my first conscious memory of alcohol and what it did.
I don't remember drinking really.
My bulimia and my alcoholism.
Bulimia came first.
I learned at 15 where a friend of mine, she and I were both heavy.
Her sister was a cheerleader and told us about sticking your finger down your throat.
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So I thought, oh my God, I can have my cake and eat it too.
I can stuff my feelings.
I can relieve them.
I'll be sinned.
My parents will love me.
And what happened was is that developed into a lifelong obsession.
Lifelong obsession.
And it continued and it continued.
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My parents were back and forth.
Every year they were back and forth.
Finally, I got so tired of it.
And this is not a conscious memory or decision on my part, but I remember I'm going to boarding
school.
I'm getting out.
And so I went to boarding school for the last two years of high school and it was probably
the greatest two years of my life.
And what I've discovered is that I thrive when I'm away from home.
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So I met all these people from all over the world.
I got good friends.
My grades were good.
And I was bingeing and purging and I had bouts of anorexia.
I was a championship tennis player.
Everything was great.
I fell in love for the first time.
That was just something that I never thought that I would ever experience.
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I was drinking a lot, but not conscious that I was alcoholic.
I was just, I went to high school.
I was 18 years old.
I was drinking.
Things changed rapidly when I got to college.
You know, I had a bright future ahead of me.
Plunked out just about my first semester and I isolated because I was hung up on this boyfriend.
And when we broke up, I kind of came out of hibernation and discovered all these people
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in the hall that smoked dope and drank.
I'm like, where have you been in my life?
So I hung out with them and therein started the daily practice of anesthetizing.
I did the sorority thing, got kicked out because they didn't think that scotch bottle they
found on my desk was cute, like I told them it was.
So I kind of ran back home, tail between my legs.
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And what I can tell you from there to where I'm sitting here is that if I wasn't doing
something to anesthetize, I was sleeping.
I would eat.
I would binge and purge.
I would drink.
If I wasn't eating, I wasn't drinking.
If I wasn't drinking, I was eating or planning what I was going to drink.
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And it consumed me.
I was obsessed.
I didn't want to do it.
Today I know that it's not about desire.
It's truly about lack of power.
But my mission in life was not to fail and to escape.
And of course I got in trouble for all this.
And I'm the oldest of four girls.
And I kind of became the identified patient.
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And so anything that went wrong in the family, it's Michelle.
It's Michelle.
So when I was about 23, my parents divorced.
My mom remarried and she had this whole new life.
She said, if I could, I would have you committed.
And so they shipped me off to this treatment center in the wine country.
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I kid you not.
It was insanely, absolutely beautiful.
So I go to this treatment center.
I'm 23 years old.
And I sit down and I'm talking to the people and they say, yeah, you know, you can never
drink again.
But what are you talking about?
Yeah, this is for real, girl.
You are here to dry out, get sober so you cannot drink again.
And my first thought was, fine, I'll smoke dope.
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I wasn't a pot smoker.
Two reasons.
It made me hungry and it made me paranoid.
And somewhere in the mix there would be a boy in a peep hat and it never turned out
well.
So I went to this treatment center and did the deal.
Smoked like a fiend.
I exercised.
I ate right.
Went through the motions.
Come home.
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I'm smoking dope the same day I get out thinking that I can do that.
And of course, it wasn't until a week later that I was back in the booth.
I was in relapse for three years, 1983, 1987.
Then I went back to treatment again because I knew I was in deep trouble.
Now I wasn't in deep trouble because I felt, you know, that, oh, I really need to get my
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act together.
I was in deep trouble because I was in trouble with the family.
So I went to treatment and I did pretty well.
I stayed sober for two years after that.
I'm Bidjigapurji, of course.
That was never ever went away.
Ever.
And then from that period on, I got active in AA and I was going to meetings and I heard
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this guy say that going to AA was like joining the Army.
You can be all you can be.
Like, that's bullshit.
For me, it's the Marines.
I'm just looking for a few good men.
I married him, by the way.
18 years older than I am, no, 14, 14.
14 years older than I am.
And he was, I come from a very conservative family.
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He was a raging liberal.
But you know, he was cute and I could see myself with him.
And we dated for, I don't know, three, four weeks, got engaged.
My parents, I think, were just like, she's not our problem anymore.
You know, so relieved that she's not our problem anymore.
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So we got married in Reno and, you know, water seeks its own level.
So here I am and my motives of operandi was I will turn my will and my life over to you.
But you're going to take responsibility for all my actions.
And he was controlling.
He was so dry.
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Fire hazard dry.
And I'm the match.
So it was just like, oh.
That was a combustible relationship.
But I will tell you today that he was a very good man.
He was a very, very good man.
We just weren't a good fit.
And he was always wanting to, you know, the get rich quick schemes that you hear about
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in the big book, that was him.
Oh, we're going to get rental property and Carlton sheets and he'd get these classes
and I'd be okay, honey.
But we were completely different.
I wanted to be he was all about making money and crazy.
And I wanted jewelry.
I wanted I wanted what I grew up with.
I wanted what my parents had, you know.
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And so this is how different we were.
My birthday was coming up and he's like, I've got a surprise for you.
Diamond areas.
I know it's time nearing.
It was a lawn tractor.
I am not kidding you.
We have some acreage.
And so it was just like green acres.
You know, here I am, Zsa Zsa Gabor.
I want it all.
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I because I had to have that outside approval.
You know, approval is my drug of choice along with food and alcohol.
And so it got to a point where we owned a pool business.
We sold it.
We came to Tulsa and because somebody in family died and we're sitting at Utica Square.
It's a beautiful spring day.
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And I we got to move here.
It was time for me to run away from home.
So long story short, we moved here and the marriage lasted a year.
And I kind of was I'm away from home.
I can do what I want.
It's going to be different.
You know, the classic geographic.
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And of course, what's my problem?
Well, he is.
But I have a habit and a pattern.
And that is I will go to the result that I want and I'll work backwards.
So we got married, but we dated after that, realizing what did I do?
We divorced.
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Then we separated and we went back and forth and back and forth and back and forth.
And in this time, I relapsed.
My food was worse than ever.
And after a two year relapse, I made the conscious decision to come back.
And I had met some people in recovery because I was doing away.
It was an abstinent, but I was doing it.
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And they told me about this group called Awakenings.
I'm like, OK.
But I have this guy in California who was a client and he was my ace in the hole.
I'm like, all right, I'm going to drink until I move.
But I'll fake being sober.
And I tried this fake being sober business, like on business trips.
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That's where I got busted.
I would tell the waiters that just pretend you're bringing me tonic water.
I would say to them, we have a bet on who can drink the most.
Just don't tell them that you're putting gin in my tonic water.
We are a creative lot to get what we want.
Of course, one hour in, I'm falling out of my chair and they're like, what happened to
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you?
And the waiter would say, oh, well, she was telling me about this bet that you guys had.
And they're looking at them like, what?
So I got in trouble at work and that got my attention.
And I got sober again.
And about a year into it, this guy walks into the office and all my bells and whistles went
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off.
I was kind of like that spaceship that lays dormant.
And then all of a sudden, they all went off.
Now, what I will tell you about that is that I am always looking for a fix on the outside
to make me good, to make me good, to make me good.
So here was this guy who was going to do that for me.
And turns out he was an alcoholic too.
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What that relationship did was bring me to a pain so primal and so desolate that it got
me into therapy and it got me into Elanon.
And that, I'm getting goosebumps now.
That, there was a, that was a seven year period where I, when I was a year sober, I was in
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an OA meeting and I heard somebody say they had an allergy to sugar.
And I heard that.
And I got abstinent that day.
I got a sponsor.
I got a food plan.
I went to meetings.
I was of service.
I worked the steps.
I sponsored other people.
I did my AA.
What I can tell you today is that's probably as much as I could do then, but I don't honestly
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think it was for me.
It was to get that approval to fit in.
I just wanted to fit in.
And I couldn't give myself that self-approval.
I mean, because of the terrorism that I grew up with, I never believed anybody if they
gave me a compliment.
If they told me that I was smart, I would believe that because I knew I was and my grades
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proved it.
And to this day, if my mom compliments me, I can't take it in.
I just can't take it in.
So it was just this yearning and this desperation.
And even though I got all of that, if I don't feel it, I can't hear it.
This is a program that works you from the inside out.
And it's taken me a long time to get there.
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But you know, I've been sober since that time.
I've relapsed.
I think I've had five sobriety dates.
I can't remember now that so far in the past.
But when that relationship started to fail, I finally got out of it for good this time.
When I went to Elanon, it was like, OK, well, I'm going to go to Elanon and learn how to
break up and mean it.
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What I didn't know is that I was doing exactly what my parents did.
Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.
Also, underlying this whole thing, as I can see now, was scarcity because I'm different.
There's never going to be enough.
You stick with the relationship and you go back and forth because you never know if you're
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going to get another opportunity.
That fear drove every decision I made up until I got out about seven months ago.
That scarcity and the competition, because I always lose, but there's so many people
that are going to want that opportunity too, not just me.
Oh, and it is a crushing way to live, crushing.
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So what happened with that is I lost my job and it wasn't anything that I did.
They downsized, they let us go.
So one of the things that was one of the biggest sources of shame for me was never finishing
college.
So I went back to school.
I went to OU.
I submitted my application.
I had to get my transcripts from the college that I went to.
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I was a 1.89, but you had to have a 2.0.
So I'm like, okay, what can I do?
And they're like, well, you have to write essays.
I'm like, can I write a check?
What do I have to do?
If you said no, you've got to write an essay.
And so I wrote an essay.
I got in.
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And what happened was is that I got to recover.
I got another opportunity to be the student that I knew I would be.
I was on the honor roll every semester.
They submitted my papers for plagiarism because they were so good.
Now, mind you, I'm pushing 50.
So it's like I had a lot of live-in that had contributed to my scholastic excellence.
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But I was consistent.
I was disciplined.
I was abstinent.
I was going to meetings.
I was working out on and doing all these things.
Finally, I relapsed when the pain got to be too great.
And my sponsor relapsed and OA.
And it just kind of fell by the wayside.
I'm like, all right, well, I'll just use AA and Elanon.
Well, they say in our program that you can't get bread in the hardware store.
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I didn't know that credits and AA don't transfer to other isms.
They just don't.
And I thought they would.
And I learned in Elanon that they don't.
Credits don't transfer.
I'm like, this could be a piece of cake.
No, no, no.
So I was in relapse.
And I was binging and purging every day.
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At one point up to the end, I was probably spending $1,000 a month on food.
I will tell you that in that period, I was just bankrupt in every way imaginable.
But I didn't know how to stop because my biggest fear, how am I going to live without anesthesia?
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What is going to happen to me?
And so I worked all day.
Blemia had become, it was a weight loss tool when I started, but it was my alcohol.
It was my drug to just, and it is the most fleeting of all of them.
And so unlike other eating disorders, you can just keep going.
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You know, you get old, you throw up, you start over again.
But it is the most demoralizing, oh God, just the self-loathing and all of that.
Because I knew what I was doing, but I'm trying, I'm living a double life.
Projecting this, I got my act together when nothing could be further from the truth.
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But I learned really early how to have my look get intact.
I didn't believe I had my look get intact.
And one thing too is that feeds into the bulimia and the outside approval is if there's scarcity,
the way to overcome that is to consume.
So internet shopping.
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I got a lot of money from my mom, just she gave us the money.
My condo was a loading dock, buying all this stuff for a life that I didn't have, but a
life that I thought I should have.
And I will tell you today that consumption and overcompensating, I mean, I was wearing
Star Trek makeup, you know, in these crazy wild outfits.
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Because you have to do more, more, more to compensate for the less, less, less.
There's no congruence between internal and external.
I will tell you too that the consequences of bulimia are stomach acid will eat through
teeth.
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It also eats through tooth enamel.
And since the year 2000, I have built a Ferrari in my mouth.
All my teeth are tapped.
I've got cerebral implants.
I've got to get to drive it every day.
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But I got a Ferrari in there.
And then it just drains you of everything.
I was like this dry sponge that you've got in the back of the sink.
It's just crinkled up and doesn't look like any amount of water will plump it up.
That was me.
That was me.
I tried to get abstinent several times using, oh God, I'm losing another tooth.
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Okay, this is another 10 grand, you know, implants aren't free.
So I would think, okay, this is what's going to fix me.
Never worked.
Ever.
I think the most I got was 30 days.
So I tried to get some outside help thinking that I would do it if I had outside help.
What I know today is that I was trying to get somebody to rubber-stamp my bullshit so
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I could keep on doing what I'm doing but not suffer the consequences.
And that's what I wanted all my life.
I want to have my keek and eat it too.
I want, I want, I want, I want.
The self-centeredness of it and the whole thing about I'm so bad, I'm so worthless.
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I remember my AA sponsor when we were going through the four steps, she's like, that's
pride in reverse.
I'm like, what are you talking about?
I don't have any pride.
She's like, Michelle, you are the center of the universe.
And I started thinking about that and it wasn't like, oh, I'm so great.
But I would go to work and people would be in a meeting of closed doors and I knew they
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were talking about me and I was going to get fired.
And it made sense to me.
So I am the one in the methibog wallow and it's not like I'll have this little submarine
in the methibog and I'll pimp it out, put a chandelier in it and stay there.
And I did that for a long, long, long, long, long time, about eight months ago.
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And I work at home.
I work at home.
COVID hit.
And I also had a very successful food business and health consulting business, as ironic
as that sounds.
I know a lot about nutrition and health and how to take care of myself.
I didn't do it, but I made money helping other people do it.
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So COVID hit.
I got a new job.
I'm working at home.
It was prime binge purge time.
What happened was I got to the point where it was the fraudulent nature of the way I
was living and the utter despair got me to a point where I was going to lose another
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tooth.
But this time, this time was different.
And somebody asked me, Michelle, why is this time different?
Those initials are rusty.
He says to me, what is different this time?
And what was different this time was that I surrendered.
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It was December 13, 2023.
I am in the parking lot of the dentist.
I had just come out of procedure.
I called someone I knew and over years anonymous.
And I said, will you help me?
I'll call you every day.
I'll send you my food.
I'll stand on my head.
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I'm not asking you to sponsor me.
I'm just saying I need help and can I be accountable to you?
And I haven't looked back.
Now the exciting thing about this is that I am in a group program.
There is a flourishing OA community that really mushroomed after COVID.
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And it's online.
There's very few in-person meetings.
But what I do is solely based on the big book.
So I got a new big book.
I got a sponsor.
We started with the doctor's opinion.
And it was like, have I read this before?
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Because I wasn't looking at it through the eyes of an alcoholic.
Because alcohol was so easy for me to put down.
I was looking at it from the eyes of a desperate soul that wanted to live from a disease that
was killing me on the installment plan.
And I've learned through this process and going through the book again, I mean, I saw
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myself on all those pages.
I had a desire to stop.
I had a desire.
But desire and morality and the memory of what happens when I binge and purge were not
sufficient.
Lack of power, that was my dilemma.
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Lack of power.
And you know, I grew up with a punishing God.
I have evolved tremendously in the higher, in the whole concept of a higher power.
But today, as I sit here, I know that I have a God that loves me unconditionally.
And I've learned that I have to surrender entirely my life to this care of God.
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That doesn't mean that I'm a prisoner.
It means that I'm free.
And I went through the book with a sponsor.
I just finished step two.
We're finishing step 12 on Wednesday.
I do everything she tells me.
I do a meeting a day.
And it's not because, oh, I've got to do another meeting.
It's like I get out of bed ready.
(32:07):
I'm so excited to live in recovery.
And the thing is, is that here I am today being my authentic self.
I want to go back just a little bit to about the last year before I got abstinent.
I heard somebody share this when they were telling their story.
And I had never heard anybody else say it.
(32:28):
And it gives me the courage to say it now, is that I was hiding, hiding, hiding, hiding.
I wouldn't let anybody in my place.
I was living in just chaos and filth.
I had all this crap just stacked everywhere.
I don't want to say I was a hoarder, but I would start these half-ass cleaning my closet
(32:50):
type of thing.
So I'd have these piles.
And it reflected what was going on inside.
Just chaos and just garbage.
And that was one thing, is that when you live in garbage and you don't take it out, the
smell is going to get you.
And I nearly died from it.
(33:11):
That stench was so horrifying.
And I'm speaking figuratively now.
So that brought me back.
And as I go to meetings and I hear people share, I know that food is my primary addiction,
but alcohol is right there.
They're intertwined because if I'm doing them both or I'm not doing them.
(33:32):
So I am forever vigilant about that.
I just made some amends.
One of the things about this program that is just so freeing is the ability to be honest
and to take responsibility for what I've done.
And I stole a lot of food.
I could teach a class.
(33:53):
Walmart should hire me.
Their profits would soar because I know how to steal.
I mean, what a skill.
So I went after the meeting on Friday, I went to Sam's Club.
I asked a gal for a manager and she said, well, is this about clothing?
I said, look, I need to tie up as you got.
Have them come on down.
So I went in and what I expected was not what happened.
(34:15):
I just thought, yeah, I'll just kind of merely save my piece.
But what I told him was that for the last several years, I had stolen probably about
a thousand dollars of food from them.
I don't know if that's the right number.
I tried to add it up, but that's the number that kept coming back day after day as I was
thinking about having to make this amend.
(34:37):
And I said, I don't live that way anymore and I'm making changes and I need to make
restitution for harm done.
And he's like, well, told me about profit loss.
They wrote it off.
And I said, would you have a charity?
And he said, they have a charity.
He said, where do you donate food?
And he said, the food bank comes every day.
(34:58):
And I said, I know that I can't write you a check, but can I pay the food bank for the
money that I owe you?
And he said, yes.
So I said, I get paid on Monday.
I can't pay it off all now, but I can bring you $250 every paycheck until I'm done.
And he said, you don't have to do that.
(35:18):
And I said, yes, I do.
Yes, I do.
And it wasn't for them.
It was for me.
If I don't own it, it will happen again.
And before I know it, I'm in Krispy Kreme.
So he was so gracious about it.
And I shook his hand, and he said again, you really don't have to do it.
(35:39):
And I said, yes, I do.
I said, I want to be able to hold my head high when I walk in the store.
And I told him, I said, I'm willing.
I'm willing to tear up my membership card.
Whatever you think the restitution should look like, I'm willing.
So I have a check made out to the food bank in my purse.
And after this, I'm going to go drop it off.
Yesterday, I went to Walmart.
(36:01):
Had no intention of doing it.
Like, you're here, do it.
So I asked for the highest on the totem pole, and the blessedest kid's 24 years old, if
that.
And so I told him.
And what he said was, this takes so much courage.
He said that a couple times.
And I said, I told him about Sam's.
And he said, don't pay us money.
(36:22):
And I said, well, then the money that I think I owe you, I would like to add to my totals
to Sam's Club, because I need to take accountability for the harm that I've done.
And he was super cool about it.
And the store manager wasn't there, but he's there today.
So I'm going back to Walmart today to make my amends to the store manager, because I
(36:44):
need to do that for myself.
You know, half measures avail me nothing.
So I am in a really good place.
Now, Reezer's is next.
And those are the three things, because all my other amends, I made amends to my Al-Anon
sponsor for not being honest about my food.
I made direct amends to her.
All my other amends have been made to this day that I'm aware of.
(37:07):
I got two guys from way back when, if I run into them, I'll say I'm sorry.
And I mean that sincerely.
But to kind of catapult myself back to something that happened 40 years ago to people who are
married and have their own lives, that's all about me.
So, and so today I can tell you that I would not trade this for anything.
(37:33):
I'm 61 years old.
This disease has had me by the throat, except for that nine years since I was 15.
I spent so much time wanting to change my past and that I was so bad I couldn't be
forgiven.
And that's not the case.
I made my amends, I'm honest, and I believe that I'm forgiven by the God.
(38:00):
I know that God cannot coexist with dishonesty.
I can't cheat on my taxes this year.
I am so pissed.
But I can't.
Because if I do, that little termite starts to germinate.
It's not worth it.
It is not worth it.
(38:21):
So I hope this helps someone.
I hope I said something today that resonates.
That's why we're here.
And I'm on step 12 now.
And I finally understand what it means when they say to keep it you have to give it away.
I never got that.
And to give it away means you're working with another, you're working the steps again,
(38:45):
and you're staying in the middle of the stream.
So you're always working the steps.
You're always, always, always being of service.
And I'm going to stay there.
And it's not because I'm noble.
It's because I want to be happy, joyous, and free.
And I am that today.
You know, I am.
So it's a huge honor to have been asked to share my story.
(39:09):
And I'm so grateful that you both are here doing this to help our community get better.
And with that, I pass.
This has been a production of ChildrenOfChaos.net.
Children of Chaos is a forum to discuss topics related to and in concert with addiction and
recovery in America.
Is not affiliated with, endorsed, or financed by any recovery or treatment program, organization,
(39:35):
or institution.
Any views, thoughts, or opinions expressed by an individual in this venue are solely
that of the individual and do not reflect the views, policies, or position of any specific
recovery-based entity or organization.
Good morning, Rusty Alcoholic.
(00:03):
And I'm Tim and I'm an alcoholic and this is Children of Chaos.
This morning we have got a special guest with us, Michelle.
There's not much that we haven't talked about over the years, right Michelle?
I think we've, we have covered so much.
Yes, absolutely.
Strangely enough, in all that time, as far as listening to your story in a meeting, I
(00:30):
don't know that I've ever heard your story in a meeting.
I've spoken a few times, but at the place that I am right now, my recovery, it's almost
like a new story.
And so it's the perspective of looking back and the work that I'm doing today.
So it's like the first time.
For those of you that haven't been in recovery long or have not ever been in recovery and
(00:53):
are listening in to see what it's all about, things will change.
Life changes and it doesn't necessarily just change in the beginning, does it?
No, no.
I've been at this since 1987 and it takes what it takes and it's taken a lot of time.
But I can honestly tell you, as I sit here today, I have never felt this peace that I
(01:17):
feel today.
Wow, that's wonderful.
And she just told you how long she's been here and I've been here since 83.
So you can imagine how many meetings we've set in together, right?
Oh, yeah, absolutely.
Almost daily.
Yeah.
You know, in our little room and then, you know, with COVID and changes and so many things.
(01:42):
But it's been, and we've had several one-on-ones.
So it's a real honor to be here because I know that I can be authentic and I can be
heard and hopefully my story will resonate with someone.
I know it will.
So why don't you go ahead?
Okay, thank you.
Hello everyone.
(02:02):
My name's Michelle.
I am a recovering alcoholic compulsive eater bulimic and codependent.
So the only thing I don't have my alphabet is DEA.
So it is a real honor to be here.
My sobriety date this time is September 1st, 2003.
(02:25):
I have had six of them since 1983.
I just celebrated seven months of abstinence from compulsive eating and bulimia.
And that was after an 11-year relapse and I had nine years of back-to-back abstinence
prior to that.
(02:46):
So there's been a lot of work.
There's been a lot of work.
But I guess where I really want to start is, and something that I'm really starting to
appreciate more and more as I work on this journey, is, you know, it's been real commonplace
for me to blame my parents for just about everything.
And I don't see that today.
(03:08):
And it's taken work.
But I was born in California in a little beach town called Santa Cruz.
It was small.
I believe that my parents kind of had an arranged marriage.
It was two prominent families that were good friends that happened to have daughters and
sons the same age.
(03:28):
And so my parents were married and neither of them had any skills whatsoever.
And it's interesting because my father was movie star handsome and my mother is beautiful.
And my father was the assemblyman for that area for several, several years.
(03:52):
And he was an attorney and his father was a district attorney.
And then on the other side of the family, my grandfather was the hospital pioneer of
that area.
And I say this just because we were big fish in a small pond.
But because my father was in elected office, our life was very public.
So Look Good was critical.
(04:14):
It didn't matter what was going on on the inside.
On the outside, it was campaign brochure beautiful.
You know, and on the inside, it wasn't so great.
My mom threatened to leave my my dad when I was when I was still incubating.
They were back and forth constantly.
(04:37):
They didn't have skills.
They didn't know what they were doing.
They were kind of thrown into this this marriage.
And then I come along.
And the way I grew up, my mother was my terrorist.
I'm going to just say it right there.
She was my terrorist.
I'll get to what it's like now.
But then she was my terrorist.
(04:57):
And I kind of became her her punching bag for what was going on in the marriage.
And the biggest message that I got in this public life was, you're fat.
I'm not feeding myself.
I'm fat.
You have to uphold the image.
We are representing the state of California.
(05:18):
And if you are fat, you are not lovable.
Along comes my sister 11 months later.
So I'm kind of overweight, a little withdrawn, and I'm four years old here.
And so we're growing up together and she's polar opposite.
She's skinny.
She's crazy.
She's wild.
I mean, how we could be related, I have no idea.
(05:40):
But what what happened was, is that my family's discipline plan was shame will shame you into
acting right.
We'll shame you.
And so shame didn't only happen behind closed doors, it happened in public.
And I was also given different food than my sister.
(06:03):
I had to wear different clothes.
I was set apart.
And so I learned at a really young age, I was different.
I wasn't worthy, not because of what I did, but because who I was.
I also learned about scarcity and competition.
I think one of the interweaving threads of that is inconsistency, because you never knew
(06:31):
what you were going to get.
My mom, I don't want to diagnose her as bipolar, but I will say that she had just, you know,
you just never knew.
So I grew up in that, that literally shaped the way I saw myself, the way I saw the world
and the way I acted.
And my first memory of food is really vague.
(06:55):
I just knew, I knew I was different and I always wanted what I couldn't have.
You know, I couldn't have bread, I couldn't have butter, I couldn't have all those things.
So I gravitated to what I, what I couldn't have, but it was always in secret.
So I learned really early how to hide.
And hiding became a coping mechanism.
(07:18):
And my hero was Mighty Mouse.
And I listened to the standard music on my little record player and I read, I read voraciously.
I mean, I was reading stuff that way beyond my years, but it was my escape.
And I will tell you, as a result of that, I've got a great vocabulary, I'm wicked smart,
I can communicate well and articulate well, which also means I can bullshit with the best
(07:43):
of them.
You know, and that's a blessing and a curse because it works in my career, but it has
failed me in recovery.
So where alcohol comes in now is that, you know, here I'm learning how to, I'm learning
how to hide.
We had this game called sneak, where we would sneak food in the middle of the night.
I mean, I can just see the writing on the wall, but my dad was a wine collector and
(08:03):
wine was a big deal in my family.
So liquor was always around.
I've got Irish Catholics on one side, Roman Catholics on the other.
We had our own family priest and he drank more than anybody.
So drinking was a big deal, but I never thought of it as anything unusual.
But the first time I consciously remember taking a drink, I was like 14, overweight,
(08:28):
no confidence whatsoever.
I'm on this beach with this friend of mine, who my parents, as they came from the other
side of the track.
And there was this kid, scrawny little like Gomer Pyle kid, who had this bottle of Andre
Colduck.
So my other side of the track friends try it and she's like, oh, we gotta go meet this
(08:50):
guy.
He's got booze.
I'm like, okay.
You know?
So it came my turn and I took a sip of this Andre Colduck and something magical happened.
I went from Fat Albert to Marsha Brady in five seconds and Gomer Pyle turned to David
Cassidy.
And it was literally like that.
(09:11):
I went from black and white to Technicolor Dolby.
It was something that I will never forget, ever.
I chased that for 40 years.
I did and I got smashed.
My friend dropped me off at home, but it kind of kicked me out of the car.
We told my parents that I had heat stroke and, you know, they didn't say anything about
(09:33):
it.
But that's my first conscious memory of alcohol and what it did.
I don't remember drinking really.
My bulimia and my alcoholism.
Bulimia came first.
I learned at 15 where a friend of mine, she and I were both heavy.
Her sister was a cheerleader and told us about sticking your finger down your throat.
(09:57):
So I thought, oh my God, I can have my cake and eat it too.
I can stuff my feelings.
I can relieve them.
I'll be sinned.
My parents will love me.
And what happened was is that developed into a lifelong obsession.
Lifelong obsession.
And it continued and it continued.
(10:17):
My parents were back and forth.
Every year they were back and forth.
Finally, I got so tired of it.
And this is not a conscious memory or decision on my part, but I remember I'm going to boarding
school.
I'm getting out.
And so I went to boarding school for the last two years of high school and it was probably
the greatest two years of my life.
And what I've discovered is that I thrive when I'm away from home.
(10:41):
So I met all these people from all over the world.
I got good friends.
My grades were good.
And I was bingeing and purging and I had bouts of anorexia.
I was a championship tennis player.
Everything was great.
I fell in love for the first time.
That was just something that I never thought that I would ever experience.
(11:02):
I was drinking a lot, but not conscious that I was alcoholic.
I was just, I went to high school.
I was 18 years old.
I was drinking.
Things changed rapidly when I got to college.
You know, I had a bright future ahead of me.
Plunked out just about my first semester and I isolated because I was hung up on this boyfriend.
And when we broke up, I kind of came out of hibernation and discovered all these people
(11:27):
in the hall that smoked dope and drank.
I'm like, where have you been in my life?
So I hung out with them and therein started the daily practice of anesthetizing.
I did the sorority thing, got kicked out because they didn't think that scotch bottle they
found on my desk was cute, like I told them it was.
So I kind of ran back home, tail between my legs.
(11:49):
And what I can tell you from there to where I'm sitting here is that if I wasn't doing
something to anesthetize, I was sleeping.
I would eat.
I would binge and purge.
I would drink.
If I wasn't eating, I wasn't drinking.
If I wasn't drinking, I was eating or planning what I was going to drink.
(12:12):
And it consumed me.
I was obsessed.
I didn't want to do it.
Today I know that it's not about desire.
It's truly about lack of power.
But my mission in life was not to fail and to escape.
And of course I got in trouble for all this.
And I'm the oldest of four girls.
And I kind of became the identified patient.
(12:34):
And so anything that went wrong in the family, it's Michelle.
It's Michelle.
So when I was about 23, my parents divorced.
My mom remarried and she had this whole new life.
She said, if I could, I would have you committed.
And so they shipped me off to this treatment center in the wine country.
(12:56):
I kid you not.
It was insanely, absolutely beautiful.
So I go to this treatment center.
I'm 23 years old.
And I sit down and I'm talking to the people and they say, yeah, you know, you can never
drink again.
But what are you talking about?
Yeah, this is for real, girl.
You are here to dry out, get sober so you cannot drink again.
And my first thought was, fine, I'll smoke dope.
(13:19):
I wasn't a pot smoker.
Two reasons.
It made me hungry and it made me paranoid.
And somewhere in the mix there would be a boy in a peep hat and it never turned out
well.
So I went to this treatment center and did the deal.
Smoked like a fiend.
I exercised.
I ate right.
Went through the motions.
Come home.
(13:39):
I'm smoking dope the same day I get out thinking that I can do that.
And of course, it wasn't until a week later that I was back in the booth.
I was in relapse for three years, 1983, 1987.
Then I went back to treatment again because I knew I was in deep trouble.
Now I wasn't in deep trouble because I felt, you know, that, oh, I really need to get my
(14:02):
act together.
I was in deep trouble because I was in trouble with the family.
So I went to treatment and I did pretty well.
I stayed sober for two years after that.
I'm Bidjigapurji, of course.
That was never ever went away.
Ever.
And then from that period on, I got active in AA and I was going to meetings and I heard
(14:26):
this guy say that going to AA was like joining the Army.
You can be all you can be.
Like, that's bullshit.
For me, it's the Marines.
I'm just looking for a few good men.
I married him, by the way.
18 years older than I am, no, 14, 14.
14 years older than I am.
And he was, I come from a very conservative family.
(14:48):
He was a raging liberal.
But you know, he was cute and I could see myself with him.
And we dated for, I don't know, three, four weeks, got engaged.
My parents, I think, were just like, she's not our problem anymore.
You know, so relieved that she's not our problem anymore.
(15:08):
So we got married in Reno and, you know, water seeks its own level.
So here I am and my motives of operandi was I will turn my will and my life over to you.
But you're going to take responsibility for all my actions.
And he was controlling.
He was so dry.
(15:31):
Fire hazard dry.
And I'm the match.
So it was just like, oh.
That was a combustible relationship.
But I will tell you today that he was a very good man.
He was a very, very good man.
We just weren't a good fit.
And he was always wanting to, you know, the get rich quick schemes that you hear about
(15:52):
in the big book, that was him.
Oh, we're going to get rental property and Carlton sheets and he'd get these classes
and I'd be okay, honey.
But we were completely different.
I wanted to be he was all about making money and crazy.
And I wanted jewelry.
I wanted I wanted what I grew up with.
I wanted what my parents had, you know.
(16:15):
And so this is how different we were.
My birthday was coming up and he's like, I've got a surprise for you.
Diamond areas.
I know it's time nearing.
It was a lawn tractor.
I am not kidding you.
We have some acreage.
And so it was just like green acres.
You know, here I am, Zsa Zsa Gabor.
I want it all.
(16:36):
I because I had to have that outside approval.
You know, approval is my drug of choice along with food and alcohol.
And so it got to a point where we owned a pool business.
We sold it.
We came to Tulsa and because somebody in family died and we're sitting at Utica Square.
It's a beautiful spring day.
(16:57):
And I we got to move here.
It was time for me to run away from home.
So long story short, we moved here and the marriage lasted a year.
And I kind of was I'm away from home.
I can do what I want.
It's going to be different.
You know, the classic geographic.
(17:19):
And of course, what's my problem?
Well, he is.
But I have a habit and a pattern.
And that is I will go to the result that I want and I'll work backwards.
So we got married, but we dated after that, realizing what did I do?
We divorced.
(17:39):
Then we separated and we went back and forth and back and forth and back and forth.
And in this time, I relapsed.
My food was worse than ever.
And after a two year relapse, I made the conscious decision to come back.
And I had met some people in recovery because I was doing away.
It was an abstinent, but I was doing it.
(18:02):
And they told me about this group called Awakenings.
I'm like, OK.
But I have this guy in California who was a client and he was my ace in the hole.
I'm like, all right, I'm going to drink until I move.
But I'll fake being sober.
And I tried this fake being sober business, like on business trips.
(18:26):
That's where I got busted.
I would tell the waiters that just pretend you're bringing me tonic water.
I would say to them, we have a bet on who can drink the most.
Just don't tell them that you're putting gin in my tonic water.
We are a creative lot to get what we want.
Of course, one hour in, I'm falling out of my chair and they're like, what happened to
(18:51):
you?
And the waiter would say, oh, well, she was telling me about this bet that you guys had.
And they're looking at them like, what?
So I got in trouble at work and that got my attention.
And I got sober again.
And about a year into it, this guy walks into the office and all my bells and whistles went
(19:12):
off.
I was kind of like that spaceship that lays dormant.
And then all of a sudden, they all went off.
Now, what I will tell you about that is that I am always looking for a fix on the outside
to make me good, to make me good, to make me good.
So here was this guy who was going to do that for me.
And turns out he was an alcoholic too.
(19:34):
What that relationship did was bring me to a pain so primal and so desolate that it got
me into therapy and it got me into Elanon.
And that, I'm getting goosebumps now.
That, there was a, that was a seven year period where I, when I was a year sober, I was in
(19:58):
an OA meeting and I heard somebody say they had an allergy to sugar.
And I heard that.
And I got abstinent that day.
I got a sponsor.
I got a food plan.
I went to meetings.
I was of service.
I worked the steps.
I sponsored other people.
I did my AA.
What I can tell you today is that's probably as much as I could do then, but I don't honestly
(20:22):
think it was for me.
It was to get that approval to fit in.
I just wanted to fit in.
And I couldn't give myself that self-approval.
I mean, because of the terrorism that I grew up with, I never believed anybody if they
gave me a compliment.
If they told me that I was smart, I would believe that because I knew I was and my grades
(20:45):
proved it.
And to this day, if my mom compliments me, I can't take it in.
I just can't take it in.
So it was just this yearning and this desperation.
And even though I got all of that, if I don't feel it, I can't hear it.
This is a program that works you from the inside out.
And it's taken me a long time to get there.
(21:06):
But you know, I've been sober since that time.
I've relapsed.
I think I've had five sobriety dates.
I can't remember now that so far in the past.
But when that relationship started to fail, I finally got out of it for good this time.
When I went to Elanon, it was like, OK, well, I'm going to go to Elanon and learn how to
break up and mean it.
(21:27):
What I didn't know is that I was doing exactly what my parents did.
Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.
Also, underlying this whole thing, as I can see now, was scarcity because I'm different.
There's never going to be enough.
You stick with the relationship and you go back and forth because you never know if you're
(21:48):
going to get another opportunity.
That fear drove every decision I made up until I got out about seven months ago.
That scarcity and the competition, because I always lose, but there's so many people
that are going to want that opportunity too, not just me.
Oh, and it is a crushing way to live, crushing.
(22:14):
So what happened with that is I lost my job and it wasn't anything that I did.
They downsized, they let us go.
So one of the things that was one of the biggest sources of shame for me was never finishing
college.
So I went back to school.
I went to OU.
I submitted my application.
I had to get my transcripts from the college that I went to.
(22:36):
I was a 1.89, but you had to have a 2.0.
So I'm like, okay, what can I do?
And they're like, well, you have to write essays.
I'm like, can I write a check?
What do I have to do?
If you said no, you've got to write an essay.
And so I wrote an essay.
I got in.
(22:58):
And what happened was is that I got to recover.
I got another opportunity to be the student that I knew I would be.
I was on the honor roll every semester.
They submitted my papers for plagiarism because they were so good.
Now, mind you, I'm pushing 50.
So it's like I had a lot of live-in that had contributed to my scholastic excellence.
(23:22):
But I was consistent.
I was disciplined.
I was abstinent.
I was going to meetings.
I was working out on and doing all these things.
Finally, I relapsed when the pain got to be too great.
And my sponsor relapsed and OA.
And it just kind of fell by the wayside.
I'm like, all right, well, I'll just use AA and Elanon.
Well, they say in our program that you can't get bread in the hardware store.
(23:46):
I didn't know that credits and AA don't transfer to other isms.
They just don't.
And I thought they would.
And I learned in Elanon that they don't.
Credits don't transfer.
I'm like, this could be a piece of cake.
No, no, no.
So I was in relapse.
And I was binging and purging every day.
(24:08):
At one point up to the end, I was probably spending $1,000 a month on food.
I will tell you that in that period, I was just bankrupt in every way imaginable.
But I didn't know how to stop because my biggest fear, how am I going to live without anesthesia?
(24:29):
What is going to happen to me?
And so I worked all day.
Blemia had become, it was a weight loss tool when I started, but it was my alcohol.
It was my drug to just, and it is the most fleeting of all of them.
And so unlike other eating disorders, you can just keep going.
(24:52):
You know, you get old, you throw up, you start over again.
But it is the most demoralizing, oh God, just the self-loathing and all of that.
Because I knew what I was doing, but I'm trying, I'm living a double life.
Projecting this, I got my act together when nothing could be further from the truth.
(25:15):
But I learned really early how to have my look get intact.
I didn't believe I had my look get intact.
And one thing too is that feeds into the bulimia and the outside approval is if there's scarcity,
the way to overcome that is to consume.
So internet shopping.
(25:35):
I got a lot of money from my mom, just she gave us the money.
My condo was a loading dock, buying all this stuff for a life that I didn't have, but a
life that I thought I should have.
And I will tell you today that consumption and overcompensating, I mean, I was wearing
Star Trek makeup, you know, in these crazy wild outfits.
(25:57):
Because you have to do more, more, more to compensate for the less, less, less.
There's no congruence between internal and external.
I will tell you too that the consequences of bulimia are stomach acid will eat through
teeth.
(26:18):
It also eats through tooth enamel.
And since the year 2000, I have built a Ferrari in my mouth.
All my teeth are tapped.
I've got cerebral implants.
I've got to get to drive it every day.
(26:39):
But I got a Ferrari in there.
And then it just drains you of everything.
I was like this dry sponge that you've got in the back of the sink.
It's just crinkled up and doesn't look like any amount of water will plump it up.
That was me.
That was me.
I tried to get abstinent several times using, oh God, I'm losing another tooth.
(27:05):
Okay, this is another 10 grand, you know, implants aren't free.
So I would think, okay, this is what's going to fix me.
Never worked.
Ever.
I think the most I got was 30 days.
So I tried to get some outside help thinking that I would do it if I had outside help.
What I know today is that I was trying to get somebody to rubber-stamp my bullshit so
(27:25):
I could keep on doing what I'm doing but not suffer the consequences.
And that's what I wanted all my life.
I want to have my keek and eat it too.
I want, I want, I want, I want.
The self-centeredness of it and the whole thing about I'm so bad, I'm so worthless.
(27:45):
I remember my AA sponsor when we were going through the four steps, she's like, that's
pride in reverse.
I'm like, what are you talking about?
I don't have any pride.
She's like, Michelle, you are the center of the universe.
And I started thinking about that and it wasn't like, oh, I'm so great.
But I would go to work and people would be in a meeting of closed doors and I knew they
(28:06):
were talking about me and I was going to get fired.
And it made sense to me.
So I am the one in the methibog wallow and it's not like I'll have this little submarine
in the methibog and I'll pimp it out, put a chandelier in it and stay there.
And I did that for a long, long, long, long, long time, about eight months ago.
(28:31):
And I work at home.
I work at home.
COVID hit.
And I also had a very successful food business and health consulting business, as ironic
as that sounds.
I know a lot about nutrition and health and how to take care of myself.
I didn't do it, but I made money helping other people do it.
(28:52):
So COVID hit.
I got a new job.
I'm working at home.
It was prime binge purge time.
What happened was I got to the point where it was the fraudulent nature of the way I
was living and the utter despair got me to a point where I was going to lose another
(29:13):
tooth.
But this time, this time was different.
And somebody asked me, Michelle, why is this time different?
Those initials are rusty.
He says to me, what is different this time?
And what was different this time was that I surrendered.
(29:35):
It was December 13, 2023.
I am in the parking lot of the dentist.
I had just come out of procedure.
I called someone I knew and over years anonymous.
And I said, will you help me?
I'll call you every day.
I'll send you my food.
I'll stand on my head.
(29:57):
I'm not asking you to sponsor me.
I'm just saying I need help and can I be accountable to you?
And I haven't looked back.
Now the exciting thing about this is that I am in a group program.
There is a flourishing OA community that really mushroomed after COVID.
(30:20):
And it's online.
There's very few in-person meetings.
But what I do is solely based on the big book.
So I got a new big book.
I got a sponsor.
We started with the doctor's opinion.
And it was like, have I read this before?
(30:42):
Because I wasn't looking at it through the eyes of an alcoholic.
Because alcohol was so easy for me to put down.
I was looking at it from the eyes of a desperate soul that wanted to live from a disease that
was killing me on the installment plan.
And I've learned through this process and going through the book again, I mean, I saw
(31:02):
myself on all those pages.
I had a desire to stop.
I had a desire.
But desire and morality and the memory of what happens when I binge and purge were not
sufficient.
Lack of power, that was my dilemma.
(31:23):
Lack of power.
And you know, I grew up with a punishing God.
I have evolved tremendously in the higher, in the whole concept of a higher power.
But today, as I sit here, I know that I have a God that loves me unconditionally.
And I've learned that I have to surrender entirely my life to this care of God.
(31:46):
That doesn't mean that I'm a prisoner.
It means that I'm free.
And I went through the book with a sponsor.
I just finished step two.
We're finishing step 12 on Wednesday.
I do everything she tells me.
I do a meeting a day.
And it's not because, oh, I've got to do another meeting.
It's like I get out of bed ready.
(32:07):
I'm so excited to live in recovery.
And the thing is, is that here I am today being my authentic self.
I want to go back just a little bit to about the last year before I got abstinent.
I heard somebody share this when they were telling their story.
And I had never heard anybody else say it.
(32:28):
And it gives me the courage to say it now, is that I was hiding, hiding, hiding, hiding.
I wouldn't let anybody in my place.
I was living in just chaos and filth.
I had all this crap just stacked everywhere.
I don't want to say I was a hoarder, but I would start these half-ass cleaning my closet
(32:50):
type of thing.
So I'd have these piles.
And it reflected what was going on inside.
Just chaos and just garbage.
And that was one thing, is that when you live in garbage and you don't take it out, the
smell is going to get you.
And I nearly died from it.
(33:11):
That stench was so horrifying.
And I'm speaking figuratively now.
So that brought me back.
And as I go to meetings and I hear people share, I know that food is my primary addiction,
but alcohol is right there.
They're intertwined because if I'm doing them both or I'm not doing them.
(33:32):
So I am forever vigilant about that.
I just made some amends.
One of the things about this program that is just so freeing is the ability to be honest
and to take responsibility for what I've done.
And I stole a lot of food.
I could teach a class.
(33:53):
Walmart should hire me.
Their profits would soar because I know how to steal.
I mean, what a skill.
So I went after the meeting on Friday, I went to Sam's Club.
I asked a gal for a manager and she said, well, is this about clothing?
I said, look, I need to tie up as you got.
Have them come on down.
So I went in and what I expected was not what happened.
(34:15):
I just thought, yeah, I'll just kind of merely save my piece.
But what I told him was that for the last several years, I had stolen probably about
a thousand dollars of food from them.
I don't know if that's the right number.
I tried to add it up, but that's the number that kept coming back day after day as I was
thinking about having to make this amend.
(34:37):
And I said, I don't live that way anymore and I'm making changes and I need to make
restitution for harm done.
And he's like, well, told me about profit loss.
They wrote it off.
And I said, would you have a charity?
And he said, they have a charity.
He said, where do you donate food?
And he said, the food bank comes every day.
(34:58):
And I said, I know that I can't write you a check, but can I pay the food bank for the
money that I owe you?
And he said, yes.
So I said, I get paid on Monday.
I can't pay it off all now, but I can bring you $250 every paycheck until I'm done.
And he said, you don't have to do that.
(35:18):
And I said, yes, I do.
Yes, I do.
And it wasn't for them.
It was for me.
If I don't own it, it will happen again.
And before I know it, I'm in Krispy Kreme.
So he was so gracious about it.
And I shook his hand, and he said again, you really don't have to do it.
(35:39):
And I said, yes, I do.
I said, I want to be able to hold my head high when I walk in the store.
And I told him, I said, I'm willing.
I'm willing to tear up my membership card.
Whatever you think the restitution should look like, I'm willing.
So I have a check made out to the food bank in my purse.
And after this, I'm going to go drop it off.
Yesterday, I went to Walmart.
(36:01):
Had no intention of doing it.
Like, you're here, do it.
So I asked for the highest on the totem pole, and the blessedest kid's 24 years old, if
that.
And so I told him.
And what he said was, this takes so much courage.
He said that a couple times.
And I said, I told him about Sam's.
And he said, don't pay us money.
(36:22):
And I said, well, then the money that I think I owe you, I would like to add to my totals
to Sam's Club, because I need to take accountability for the harm that I've done.
And he was super cool about it.
And the store manager wasn't there, but he's there today.
So I'm going back to Walmart today to make my amends to the store manager, because I
(36:44):
need to do that for myself.
You know, half measures avail me nothing.
So I am in a really good place.
Now, Reezer's is next.
And those are the three things, because all my other amends, I made amends to my Al-Anon
sponsor for not being honest about my food.
I made direct amends to her.
All my other amends have been made to this day that I'm aware of.
(37:07):
I got two guys from way back when, if I run into them, I'll say I'm sorry.
And I mean that sincerely.
But to kind of catapult myself back to something that happened 40 years ago to people who are
married and have their own lives, that's all about me.
So, and so today I can tell you that I would not trade this for anything.
(37:33):
I'm 61 years old.
This disease has had me by the throat, except for that nine years since I was 15.
I spent so much time wanting to change my past and that I was so bad I couldn't be
forgiven.
And that's not the case.
I made my amends, I'm honest, and I believe that I'm forgiven by the God.
(38:00):
I know that God cannot coexist with dishonesty.
I can't cheat on my taxes this year.
I am so pissed.
But I can't.
Because if I do, that little termite starts to germinate.
It's not worth it.
It is not worth it.
(38:21):
So I hope this helps someone.
I hope I said something today that resonates.
That's why we're here.
And I'm on step 12 now.
And I finally understand what it means when they say to keep it you have to give it away.
I never got that.
And to give it away means you're working with another, you're working the steps again,
(38:45):
and you're staying in the middle of the stream.
So you're always working the steps.
You're always, always, always being of service.
And I'm going to stay there.
And it's not because I'm noble.
It's because I want to be happy, joyous, and free.
And I am that today.
You know, I am.
So it's a huge honor to have been asked to share my story.
(39:09):
And I'm so grateful that you both are here doing this to help our community get better.
And with that, I pass.
This has been a production of ChildrenOfChaos.net.
Children of Chaos is a forum to discuss topics related to and in concert with addiction and
recovery in America.
Is not affiliated with, endorsed, or financed by any recovery or treatment program, organization,
(39:35):
or institution.
Any views, thoughts, or opinions expressed by an individual in this venue are solely
that of the individual and do not reflect the views, policies, or position of any specific
recovery-based entity or organization.
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