My name is Teresa K.
My story starts in Jan. 2011. I moved from Las Vegas to San Diego to sober up. I began to attend 5-8 meetings a week and found a sponsor. I did what my sponsor suggested, but I just couldn't stay sober.
I heard Lee Ann speak at Lincoln Avenue Speakers meeting. She was on fire and I KNEW I HAD to have what she was talking about.
I joined her workshop in Nov. of last year, yet continued to drink.
On Dec. 27, 2011, I got a DUI and went to jail.
On Jan 5th, 2012, I took an exact combination of pills that, mixed with great quantities of alcohol, would ensure that I would NOT wake up. I SHOULD have passed out and stopped breathing. (I actually researched this! I wanted to be dead, not living with broken down organs because I had screwed up yet ANOTHER suicide attempt!) I was DEVASTATED!!
On Jan. 6th, I did my first REAL 3rd step. "God, you obviously have me here for a reason. I KNOW this because I AM, inspite of my best attempts to be otherwise. I now offer myself to you, ALL of me, because I can't live with this pain any longer. I am ready to get busy working the steps because I am at a complete loss as to what else to do."
I took out the Big Book Awakening and the Idiots Guide and started an EARNEST 4th step. What a grueling and tedious experience, yet SOOOO worth it. I continued to work the rest of the steps as outlined in the workbook and am now taking another through the work.
I want to emphasize what a blessing it has been for me to have Tyla's 2008 workshop on the Internet, I could not have made it through this alone. This woman is my angel and she doesn't even know I exist!! (Thank you Tyla!)
Because of my DUI in December, I can not drive. That is a mess that will be a long process sorting out. Nor am I employed at the moment (money for the bus is tight.) So getting to the meeting last night was truly an act of God and exactly what my step-partner needed to hear. (I was elated to see the meeting so close to the trolley station; now getting to the meeting without relying on another is a reality for me that I hadn't seen possible!)
Tyla is EXACTLY right in her statement that people in AA meetings are dying out there. I certainly was and the quality of women sponsorship is shameful. Don't get me wrong, doing a collage and making a God Box together with my sponsor was surely a bonding experience, but not the message I needed to RECOVER.
Like I stated earlier, I am acting as a step-guide for one other person at the moment. I do not feel ready to become a full-fledged sponsor, but when I do, I TRULY have hopes of becomming the 12-step drill sergent that I was lacking in my recovery.
My outlook on life has changed dramatically in the short time it took for me to complete the steps the BBA way. (I worked VERY hard and did the work daily.) Today, I am at peace. This is not the manic pink cloud I was on when I separated alcohol from my body for the first time and this is certainly an enormous contrast from where I was the night I attempted suicide. In January, I embarked on my recovery, today I am truly content. I can't wait to see what God has in store for me next.
Thank you and God bless!
Teresa K.