Murrumbeena Monday - 3 May 2026

Murrumbeena group are on the podcast this month.

Murrumbeena Monday is an ID meeting on Mondays from 7.30-9.00pm. They meet at the Murrumbeena Uniting Church on Murrumbeena Road.

https://meetings.aa.org.au/meetings/murrumbeena-monday/

https://aatimes.org.au/meeting/murrumbeena-monday

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Meetings Men in Melbourne.

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Welcome everyone to the Meetings Men in Melbourne podcast based in Melbourne, Australia. My name's Andy. I'm an alcoholic. And Mike will be your chairperson for this meeting. Today we have Marumbina Monday group on the podcast. They meet at the Uniting Church in Marambina at 7.30 p.m. on Mondays. The format of the meeting is the chairperson reads the daily reflections, and speakers share their experience, strength, and hope on their recovery from alcoholism. I'll now hand the meeting over to Mike, who'll chair the meeting and pick speakers.

SPEAKER_03 0:43

G'day everyone, my name is Mike, and I'm an alcoholic. Welcome to the Monday night meeting of uh Alcoholics Anonymous in Marambina. Uh my name's Mike, I'm an alcoholic. Um I will read the preamble to begin with. Uh Alcoholics Anonymous is a fellowship of people who share their experience, strength, and hope with each other that they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from alcoholism. The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking. There are no dues or fees for AA membership. We are self-supporting through our own contributions. AA is not allied with any sect, denomination, politics, organization, or institution, does not wish to engage in any controversy, neither endorses nor opposes any causes. Our primary purpose is to stay sober and help other alcoholics to achieve sobriety. Uh Leslie, would you like to read the Daily Reflection?

SPEAKER_01 1:38

My name's Leslie. I'm an alcoholic. Uh the reflection, daily reflection for the third of May, it's called cleaning house. Somehow being alone with God doesn't seem as embarrassing as facing up to another person. Until we actually sit down and talk aloud about what we have so long hidden, our willingness to clean house is still largely theoretical. Twelve steps and twelve traditions. So it wasn't unusual for me to talk to God and myself about my character defects. But to sit down face to face and openly discuss these intimacies with another person was much more difficult. I recognized in the experience, however, a similar relief to the one I had experienced when I first admitted I was an alcoholic. I began to appreciate the spiritual significance of the program and that this step was just an introduction to what was yet to come in the remaining seven steps.

SPEAKER_03 2:35

Thanks, Leslie. Uh this is an ID meeting, so you can share on the reading what your life was like before you got to AA, how you got to AA, what your life is like now, or anything AA related. Please confine your shares to alcohol-related issues. Please keep your shares to a reasonable length of time to allow other people to share as well. Uh we'll now begin to call on speakers. Uh, David, would you like to share?

SPEAKER_02 2:58

Yeah, sure. Um, David, alcoholic. Um yeah, grateful to be here, grateful to be able to share at a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. Um, I uh really connect with parts of this reading. Um, but I'll just yeah, identify myself quickly. I'm um I know I'm an alcoholic because um I found that throughout my life when I took a drink, it was rarely just one. For most of my life, um, there was never an intention of it being one. It was always um to have many, but I didn't realize that that was because when I had one, it activated something in me that um felt like, you know, quite extreme discomfort if I didn't continue drinking. And that was usually to the point of just passing out. Um and then the other reason I know or that I believe I belong here is because I um I tried to stop drinking and that didn't work either. I um tried to put down the alcohol. And um when I did that, I went steadily more and more insane. The tension in my head built and built and built until I ended up taking another drink. And this was at a time when I had every reason not to drink. I had a son, I had a partner, I had a job, and um, I had a lot of good reasons not to be um the kind of dad who passes out on the floor. But um, all of those really good reasons, as well as, you know, advice from doctors and um, you know, psych the help of psychologists and psychiatrists, all of those reasons were not sufficient to stop me picking up a drink again. Um and yeah, luckily I had that experience because um if I hadn't tried to stop, I wouldn't have found out that I couldn't. Um, you know, I I tried to stop drinking, and the repeated experience of not wanting to drink, but finding myself drinking, is what really broke me, what really gave me the sense that I'm not in control here and that I'm not actually choosing whether or not I drink. Um, but that maybe something in my, you know, something about me means that I will always come back to a drink, no matter how long I spend sober. Um, and that that was very powerful for me. That that really broke me, you know, mentally. Um, and it got to the point where it was every day going through that, just being like, I'm not gonna drink today, I'm gonna be a good dad today, I'm gonna get back with my partner because she'd kicked me out when I was sober because I was just that unstable. Um, because I just couldn't hold it together. And each day I would drink a bottle of whiskey. And it just um, you know, that's not that's not the person that I intended to be, and yet it is the person that I was. But it wasn't until I came into the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous that I found that out. Um, and that's kind of when the process of cleaning house started for me was I was broken enough in a room alone by myself while my now ex-partner and my son were in a the home that I'd been living in across town. Um, and I was speaking to a friend telling her about how I just have to resign myself to drinking like this on a regular basis because what I need to do in order to be okay. And she mentioned that maybe that was um not a good idea, or like maybe there was something wrong with that, and that I should try and do something. She said, Why don't you try Alcoholics Anonymous? And I um called up the helpline or the number. Um, and they said, Oh, there's a meeting tonight. Do you want to go? And I was like, No, no, that's no, no, that's far too soon. I'm very busy. And my being busy included drinking whiskey. So um I went the next day, and I was very lucky that at that meeting there was a guy there who um was armed with facts about himself um and knew enough about the disease of alcoholism that um he recognized somebody who was really suffering with that disease, you know, and um he offered me sponsorship and I um was too terrified to say no. So I began um my sort of journey into recovery there and started recovering. Um so I started working through the big book with him. Um and yeah, I found myself within um within that month, I think, I can't remember very well, but finding myself around step four and um being faced with the prospect of writing down um some of my grosser handicaps and um trying to clean a little bit of the house that had become really messy in my head. And um yeah, I just um wanted to share about how like being alone with God, um, oh sorry, like in the in the reflection, it says, um, this person says it wasn't unusual for them to talk to God. For me, it was very unusual to talk to God. I was an atheist, I was a very belligerent atheist, and I would tell you about it. Um, and I was just um absolutely brimming with prejudice. Um what's the quote from the book? Um, you know, like uh a prejudice before I'd had an experience with the thing. Um that Herbert Spencer quote. Um and you know, what um what happened what I'm grateful for now is that, you know, through the process of like just being hammered by my alcoholism and and seeing really that I was not making choices for myself and um that I was being driven around by my emotions and by, you know, the sort of ultimately like the faith that I had in alcoholism that was driving me that like in alcohol, that it would solve my problems. I was being driven around by that to the point where I had to come to this um, you know, really embarrassing meeting full of people in a community center in Westgarth village. And I was like, this is the worst point of my life, not knowing that it was, you know, one of the best points of my life. Um, and being broken in that way really burst that um icy intellectual bubble that I'd been living in, where I was like unable to accept ideas or experiences that didn't align with the thinking that I already had. Um and that's something that I find comes to me when I think about a um a reflection like this today, because there's like a psychiatrist who was Bill Wilson, one of the co-authors and co-founders of Alcoholics Anonymous and of the big book. Um Harry Tebow actually ended up being Bill Wilson's psychiatrist. And one of the things he said was that a um a qualifying factor for the disease of alcoholism from his perspective was having a set of ideas in my head and having the work needing to change the world to match those ideas. And um what happened for me was that was flipped when I found that I wasn't choosing to drink alcohol, that actually the world was changing my ideas and I would make up ideas in my head to justify what was happening to me and around me. And um luckily that icy intellectual bubble was burst or fractured enough that I could start to take on a new perspective. I could listen to direction and I could follow some directions from my sponsor to start making phone calls, you know. That's the first way I started cleaning house was just like calling people, you know, um, and airing some of the things that would go on in my head, which were quite insane, like becoming furious with the wind on a phone call because I'm like, you know, it's really annoying that the I can't hear properly. And it's like, well, yeah, David, you don't control the wind. You know, like that is an unreasonable expectation of reality that um you might be able to control the wind. And really, that was kind of like one of the first contacts I had with my higher power in that way, which was that like, David, maybe you don't control the universe. Maybe actually the universe is much bigger than you and there are forces within it that are far beyond your ability to affect or manage or control. Um and so, like making phone calls, listening to my sponsor, going and reading the book with him, going to my home group and getting doing some service, you know, getting into the kitchen and putting chairs out and doing that at other meetings, getting service positions at other meetings too, and bringing the the coffee and biscuits and chairing meetings and all that stuff, began to sort of like break apart this idea that the world had to match my expectations and my internal thinking. Um and so when it came to step four, I was like, I had contact with a higher power and I didn't call it God at the time. I'm pretty sure I called it love, or it might have been my childhood dog or something. Because it doesn't really matter. Like, there's a one of my favorite parts of the book is where it says, like, you know, when we say God, we are talking about a God of your own understanding that it is it is a concept um that um it is whatever you think it is, right? Like, you know, I love this thing keeps coming back to me from the movie Amelie. I don't know if anybody's seen it, but like um, it's the fool who looks at the finger that points to the sky. Like, don't confuse the finger with the sky because the sky is something different, and like the word God is just a finger pointing to something else to me. Um, and there's something, you know, like I get to to find my own experience with what it what is being pointed to. And um, and luckily I had that. So, like the idea of talking to God was just absolutely alien to me, but I'd begun that process, but really, and like I'm 15 months sober, I think. But like, and I I've got no real capacity on my own to distinguish if my higher power is speaking to me or if it's just my own thinking, because it sounds the same to me. It's the same voice, you know, like it's it's got my accent and my like, you know, it still sounds very similar to me. Um, so I have to check my thinking with someone else. And when it comes to these like key defects, my grosser handicaps that drove my behavior and drove me back again and again and again to needing a drink in order to be okay. Um I have to be able to check that with somebody else. And so, like, you know, when I wrote my step four, I'm lucky that I had the direction from the big book and from older sober members in my home group that like sitting on that is tantamount to like, um, well, maybe not quite, but tantamount to suicide. You know, it's like I may as well go and as almost as if I may as well go and have a drink. It's not like that. But like, you know, the stuff that I get down on paper, that needs to be like gotten off my chest and shared with another person. And I think that that's like another part of my experience of alcoholism is that it was isolation, you know, like being isolated from family, friends, like having access to love in my life and removing myself from it. And I know that's not everybody's story because I was very fortunate in my life, but um, you know, I had access to love in my life and I removed myself from it through my disease. And um, so when it came to um when it came to what's my train of thought. Yeah, yeah. So like I have to connect with other people in order to make any of this process real. And that's why, you know, in how it works, we start in the chapter five, we start talking about inventory and um then it goes on to say, like, now we begin to make this process real. We're gonna share that with another human. We're gonna get outside of David's skull and actually say some words out into the ether, into the void and like connect with another being there, my sponsor. And then, of course, I, you know, there's action and more action there always is, and I have to go and, you know, act on some of the things that I've done to share with other people, um, to make amends with other people. The relief that I got um in cleaning house and like finally sharing that thing with another person of just like taking action to protect myself or to like address my alcoholism, this thing that I denied existed or was in delusion about its existence. Um, the relief that I got was extraordinary. I had my first experience of serenity shortly after my fifth step. I remember I was staying at a friend's house and I was sitting on the back step and I saw a bird fly across the sky. And that was the only thing that happened in my mind at that moment. Um, like there wasn't like 40 other voices going on, and like three arguments, and like four regrets and a sense of despair and like terror about what might happen tomorrow. It was just a bird going across the sky. And um that moment of what I now understand is serenity, like I never experienced that in my life, I don't think. I don't, I can't remember a time. And um, that was just so powerful. And to me, that is the power of like when I think of cleaning house, I think of that. I think of clearing out all of those arguments. Somebody, because like to me, this uh reflection is talking about step four, and um, in step 10, it says we continue taking personal inventory. And so I see them as like a straight line continuing on. Um, and I think about cleaning house as like, you know, whenever I have an argument in my head, whenever I have any emotional disturbance, whenever I'm disturbed, um, I have some cleaning to do, I have some work to do, and I can do that now. I I rarely do it when I should. Um, but now it's normally within the day or within a couple of days, and within a week, I've addressed the thing instead of leaving that to pile up. Because every time I leave one of those lingering things in my head, it just opens the door for another thing to come in. I'm obsessing over some argument I had in my head about an interaction I had yesterday, and then I'm a bit just less patient or less tolerant with somebody today, and that allows another one in, and that just builds and builds and builds and builds and builds. And um yeah, I like the ability to just continue to clean house and to um clear out that noise means that I am capable of being here present in the moment and having an experience worth sharing. Like, you know, I couldn't sponsor my sponsees if I didn't have those moments of serenity where I can actually think clearly and to me channel my higher power, like channel something else, so that it's not me making the decisions all the time. Because not that it really was me, but it was me being driven by those little arguments in my head. I wasn't actually choosing or like present in my life, and I get to do that. I get to be present with my son and my ex and and my parents and at work and in AA. And so yeah, we're really grateful to be here. Thanks for letting me share.

SPEAKER_03 17:53

Thanks, David. Uh nice share. Um would you like to share Leslie?

SPEAKER_01 18:01

Uh my name's Leslie. I'm an alcoholic. Um really grateful to be sober today and to be here and participating. Um just some background on me. My alcoholism was quite aggressive and slow, really. Although when I look back as a child, I had a a propensity to want to escape. Um anything that took me out of my head actually was good. So I was really into movies and um reading, I used to read. So it's great to be in a library today. I feel at home in in places like this. Um But what it really was was my inability to deal with reality um from you know quite a young age. Um so you know, I've heard it said that we we have the isms before we have the before we add the alcohol and make it alcoholism. And I can see that now um that that was probably the case for me. I um yeah, I married quite young, um, had children quite young. Oh in my I had my second child when I was twenty five, so the first one had come when I was twenty-three. Uh by twenty-seven, twenty-eight I was divorced and um I'd married again. Uh mainly because I think you know, I wanted someone to I I struggled to be in the world. I struggled to feel any degree of comfort. Um square peg round hole maybe doesn't it's kind of describes it but doesn't it doesn't really do it justice in the way that you feel when you feel like you know, your skin's on fire. And you know, you just want to be somewhere else. Um not where you are or who you are. You know, just always wanting to be somewhere else. My mum used to say, you know, you think the grass is greener anywhere else but where you are. And um she's probably right. Well she was right, she's no longer with us, but um it it made it made my life quite difficult. Um people sort of interpreted it as oh, she's never satisfied with what she's got, she's never never at peace, she can't sit still, she can't just accept um what life is about. But and i i it it made it sound like I was selfish and self-indulgent, and probably to a certain extent I was, but um I found I just found living in the world really, really hard. Um really I I felt like an alien in an alien land, you know, it was it was just really uncomfortable. I mean, I guess I had my first drink when I was about fifteen, but it it wasn't I I remember um going to a girlfriend's house the first time I had a blackout was actually probably about the second time I drank, and we were drinking Blackberry nip. I s I I mean, even saying that makes me feel sick these days. Sweet cloying. I think they were watering it down. I don't think I was, and apparently I fell off the toilet in a blackout. And of course I don't remember that at all. I I I didn't believe that that had happened. It it wasn't uh I my first husband I met when I was nineteen, so he wasn't much of a drinker 'cause both of his parents were alcoholics and um so He wasn't much of a drinker. So that probably put the brakes on any desire I had to drink. If I had two drinks at a party, he'd kind of go off at me. And, you know, so it was just easier not to. And then I got pregnant and so off we went. When I married the second time, I married into quite a social environment. Lots of quite good wine and good restaurants. And, you know. And there were people who drank more than me. So it was kind of okay for me to drink more than was probably good for me. But it didn't affect them the way it affected me. And gradually um I got to the point where it was lots of things in between, but I got to the point where I I wanted to drink a lot, a lot of the time. And I knew I couldn't do that if I stayed in the marriage. My kids at this stage were late teens. And so I thought, okay, well, you know, I blamed my second husband, of course. You were we're very good at pointing fingers and forget that we're pointing for every finger that points forward, three point back. But it it just seemed the obvious solution was to get out of the marriage and um let me live the life that I wanted to live, the way I wanted to live it. And uh a friend of mine's uh by this age, I was I should say I'm in my early 40s. I'm I'm not a young kid or you know, I'm not a young woman or anything like that. But um a friend of mine said, Well, you know, I think what you're having is a late onset adolescence, you know. So all the things that people did in the late late teens and early 20s, I didn't do because I was married and and had children. So I went off and did it in my early 40s, you know, and that's what people thought I was doing. No one could actually see the level of pain that was going on inside and the the turmoil and the tumult that that I was in my head and in my body, you know, I I felt physically aching constantly in pain, you know, emotional pain, psychic pain, physical pain, the whole, the whole lot. And um I didn't understand it myself. I didn't have a clue what was going on. And towards the end of my second marriage, I I'd been seeing a psychiatrist who had put me into the Melbourne clinic um for a week. I didn't really I didn't realize why I was there was to detox. I had no bloody idea. I just thought I was kind of there for a a bit of a rest uh for my nerves or something. Um and it was there that I was introduced to AA to my first meeting, and I had no idea what was I knew about AA, I knew about alcoholism. I mean, every my parents were not alcoholics, but in my extended family there were some rogue characters, you know, a couple of uncles and an aunt, and um most families have them. Um I just had a couple of them as well. Um nobody talked about it because it was just kind of normal behaviour, you know, don't nobody whether they were alcoholic or not is not for me to say. Um and but you know, I didn't come from an alcoholic family directly. Um and I but I did know about AA, but I had no experience of alcoholism per se. I really didn't know how it manifested itself in a person. I had no idea. And I couldn't be an alcoholic because eventually I'd find the reason why I drank so much. I was constantly looking for that reason. Why do I drink so much? If I find the reason, I'll be able to do something about it. I'll be able to manage it. Um, my job title was manager, so it was kind of like a source of pride or something that I could eventually manage the way I drank. Because I didn't understand it. Um I didn't want to do it, but I did it. And when I wanted to not do it, I couldn't not do it. I mean, I think it's what we all have in common in this room is that when we want to stop, we can't. No matter how hard we try, no matter what method we use, no matter who we go and talk to about it. Until you get to AA, of course. Um, my first meeting, I I thought it was interesting. I thought it was almost anthropological, you know, just wasn't it interesting what people have done in their lives? Um, but I heard all the differences and not the similarities. I had a bad case of the Yetz. Oh, I haven't done that yet. Yet. The morning drink, no, don't do that. And I didn't. Um I did eventually, but I didn't at that particular point in time. I went to a few meetings afterwards, but I didn't particularly enjoy them. I'm I'm someone who doesn't join things. I don't join groups. Um I don't like getting in the middle of things. I'm still to a certain extent a bit of a boundary rider around situations, um out even outside of AA. Um so I I think I I bounced in and out of AA for probably about four uh four years. Sometimes I get three months up, sometimes I get three weeks or three hours or something. That was about about what I could do. But, you know, as we know, it doesn't get any better. It gets a lot worse. It keeps going on. And no matter what I did, I I I just could not manage this, I could not control it. I I intellectually I understood what the first step meant. But I couldn't and I'd get up and say at a meeting, my name's Leslie, I'm an alcoholic, but I didn't believe it. It took me a long time to to really believe it. And I'd heard about, you know, those gutter moments. The one that gets you, the one that really does it. And mine was my daughter's wedding. I'd been sober for three months and I stood up in meetings and said that you know, the wedding's coming up and I'm gonna be sober, and blah blah blah. Um Well, that's not what happened. And we we all know we've all been in situations where we weren't going to drink and then we do. And this was particularly I I I don't remember a lot of it. I I what the what the thing I remember most was um my parents lived interstate and um uh as does my my brother and his family, and they came for the wedding, and my father had never seen me drunk because I had lived in away from Western Australia for quite a long time at this stage, and I'd left when I was about 20. So it hadn't taken hold of me at that stage, but I saw the look in my father's eye, in in his eyes, when he realized just how drunk I was. And I think I had had a conversation with them saying, I think I've got a problem with alcohol. Um, but he hadn't seen it and then he saw it. And you know, my dad passed away, it's coming up for three years now. But um, if ever I think about wanting to have a drink, I see that look. That's all I need to see. Um a week later I was in a rehab and it was an AA-based rehab, and I'd done steps one, two, and three a thousand times. You know, I'd I'd even probably ventured into step four, but not obviously not very successfully. And um, but there was something that happened when we one day in a meeting we went through steps one, two, and three, and in the meeting was in the rehab, and the next morning I woke up and I wrote in my journal, because we have to keep a journal, which I hate doing, um, but I pull this one out every now and again. And um, you know, it said, I I feel I've woken up feeling like a shattered piece of glass, that I now need to put all those shattered pieces back together for whole to become whole again. That was on the second of well, my sobriety date's the 2nd of April 2009. So it's been just over 17 years, and I'm still putting those bloody bits of glass together. You know, it really um it's not something that you do once, and um that's it. You have to, through the whole of your sobriety, things keep coming up that you need to address, defects of character that need to be addressed that just don't necessarily go away over one iteration of a step for. I am not a God person at all, and I use that when I first came to AA to say this is not for me because this is this has some religious connotation. I hear people today say it's not a religious program, it's a spiritual one. I'm not entirely sure, even after 17 years, that I understand what that means. But for me, all I have to remember is that I am not the one in the driver's seat. I I'm probably um much more inclined to believe in cause and effect these days. I can't control other people's behavior, I can only control mine. Doing a step for is my way of examining how I am as a person and sharing it not just with anyone, because most people, when I talk about defects of character, people who are not in the program, it's like every every orifice clenches. You know, you can't you can't talk about defects of character. We're all you know flawed people. Well, no, it's only people in the program in AA that understand what I mean when I talk about defects of character. These are the things that will hold back, you know, my recovery if I don't address them. And I, you know, I I said you can it's a continual process, and I'm in the process at the moment of doing a step four because of estrangement from um one of my children, which we're working through it with family therapy. Um, but I the there are things that have come up there which I thought I'd address, but which I haven't. It's just a lifelong process. It it gets easier, but we have to do it. It's it's cleansing, you know, it it and it is liberating. And I think that um I think when the reading talks about uh I'm just trying to find it now, talks about relief, that's what you get from your step four and from sharing with another person, another person who understands who you are, because they have experienced who you are themselves. So thanks for letting me share. And um My name's Mike.

SPEAKER_03 34:13

I'm an alcoholic. Uh happy to be at this meeting and happy to share. Um, yeah, the good thing about coming to these meetings is always hearing other people's shares and and identifying um bit a bit of my story. Um, you know, I guess what you call a garden variety alcoholic, not really. But, you know, I'm drinking at a young age. Um, but sort of similar to what I've heard a lot of people say earlier is that um, you know, as a child, it's really interesting. At one of my first earlier meetings, it was a really old member that stood up, and you know, he was so old that he had to write down his share on a piece of paper. But the first thing that he said, he was a really old bloke, and the first thing he said was, I was a moody child, and I super ID'd with that. Um, and and like what a few other people have said, that you know, I really didn't, you know, fit in. I I struggled to sort of, you know, I was definitely not one of the cool people. Um, you know, I was you know bullied and and you know, those sorts of things and excluded and and and things like that. But um at about the age of you know 15 or so, um, I was in another country uh we're visiting family and there was a you know a traumatic family event occurred, and um, you know, my cousins uh basically said, Look, this was you seem really upset, um, come with us to the pub. And uh so I went to the pub. Um it was my first drinking experience, my first blackout experience. Um, but I had you know, it was the best time I've ever had in my life. Um, and from that point on, I I I you know, it was kind of like it was a new identity for me. It was like it'd be this thing instead of the other person. So um when I, you know, returned to Australia, I was just um said to my friends, this is what we're doing now, um, and started to, you know, associate with people that you know that that drank basically, and we would get older brothers to buy booze. Um, I would buy it because I looked the oldest, and and I always was able to drink more than everybody else. Um, I always wanted to drink more than everybody else. I always couldn't get enough. Um, you know, I I I remember being at a mate of mine's sister's 18th birthday, I was about 16, and uh I had my standard at that point, which was a bottle of vodka. Um, I believe it was Cossack on that occasion, but I was just you know sculling it. And I th one of my friends actually at that age said, you know, it sounds like you're a bit of an alcoholic, mate. And I was like, get out of here, you know, I've got this completely under control. Um, but yeah, so so from the get-go, I was one of those drinkers that just absolutely loved it, but just couldn't get enough of it. There was no amount of booze you could pour down my throat. Um, and that, you know, of course, led to other things. Um, you know, booze wasn't enough, so you know, booze and a bit of weed, and booze and a bit of weed and a bit of speed, and booze and a bit of weed and a bit of speed and a bit of LSD, and then you know, further down the track, um, you know, fairly long story short, but you know, I I I was basically, you know, at one point there I was a heroin addict, I was committing crimes, swarm a habit, all that sort of stuff, very bad. Um, but I managed to, you know, go cold turkey off that and get myself together, and then later on in life I um had an injury and I was prescribed, you know, over-the-counter painkillers, well, not over-the-counter, but you know, prescription painkillers, which were the same thing as heroin, really. I got addicted to those and I managed to, you know, go cold turkey on those, but at constant throughout my experience, was um was booze, right? And it just it was looked at differently. I mean, my family was big on drinking, you know, they you know, every celebration was at a pub or you know, at home, we'd have a lot of yeah, my mum was more than likely an alcoholic. Um, there was always drinking happening all the time everywhere. So it was just um culturally, it was really um very just acceptable to drink. Um, but we also knew among some of my friends that you know we would like to drink, but we didn't want anyone to know, so we would get really, really good at hiding it. Um, so we used to think that we'd get more polite when we'd drink because we'd be so you know intensely trying to pretend that we weren't drinking when we were. Um and yeah, it just it just went on and on. Um you know, fast forward I don't know, 30 years, um, you know, I was in a very unhealthy, you know, toxic relationship. I was drinking incredibly heavily, incredibly heavily. Um, and that relationship broke down. And then, you know, I ended up uh being in a house by myself during COVID, uh, with no access, you know, no, no, couldn't see my children by myself. And um, you know, the lever that I pulled was was alcohol. Um, and and similar to what some other people have shared here, you know, it was just whiskey. Um, and at that point, you could um, you know, you could order it online. Um, so I didn't, you know, it was fraught with danger. Um and I I used to drink on, you know, because you know, I've got all these things going wrong in my life, you know, for whatever it was, my parents were mean to me, that thing happened, you know, my relationship broke down, I can't see my kids, and you know, so it sort of it fueled, it was it was I was trying to drink it away, I think, um, and not think about it. But if you've been in that situation, you know that um there's no amount of booze that can drink drink that sort of thing away. And and you then it became you know, really, really harmful drinking, you know, and I just I was and I think some you know some people have mentioned some of the um you know I I I I was I was definitely a daily drinker, but I wasn't a morning drinker. And I I became a uh first thing in the morning drinker. I couldn't function without um having that first drink, and it was you know, not shot, I'm talking you know, half a pot of whiskey. Um, and I'd be afraid that the glass would break because my hands were shaking so badly, um, that the glass would hit my teeth.

unknown 40:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 40:19

And it was it was it was insane. Um, and you know, a lot of people talk about rock bottom. Um, and the the phrase I like with that one is, you know, rock rock bottom happens when you stop digging. Um, and it just, you know, all you know, things, you know, as it says, you know, the things that were previously unacceptable became acceptable. Um there was sort of, you know, you know, your your personal hygiene goes out the window, your self-care goes out the window, um, you're just just rolling out of bed, pouring booze down your neck, and um and yeah, that that was my existence. It was really, really rough. Um, I was hospitalized a number of times. Um I'm guessing it was alcohol poisoning, but you know, I'd always tell them that I'd eaten something. Um once I told them I'd eaten it, you know, I'd left a chicken salad roll on my car seat in the sun, and I ate that, and I got admitted to hospital. And then some guy came in and swore that it was Salmonella, and we had to notify the health department, and I had to be in an isolation zone. I'm just not working out how I wanted it to. And I but the point the point of that was I was never really being treated for what I was there for, right? Um, and what was really, you know, and I I like for about a year before I came to AA, I'd I'd seriously started to try and stop and you know, try the control mechanisms, you know, I'll just not do this or I'll have it on this time, or I'll wait until this time, or you know, days ending in Y or whatever it was. But um, you know, I just sort of felt like, you know, every time I'd come away for it, I'd come back to it. And it wasn't like I'd come back to it in a point where I'd have a couple of drinks and be happy. I'd come back to exactly where I was when I stopped. Um, you know, I used to use this analogy, it was like sort of getting off a train at a station, and then you get back on the train exactly where you got back off it. Um and it was really, really uh, you know, for someone that was a bit of a, you know, I had the arrogance of um, you know, I I can stop this, surely. You know, I've done I've managed to stop other things. Why can't I stop this? And you know, but also thinking that alcoholism isn't such a big deal, you know, just not seeing it for what it was took a really, really long time. Remember going to my GP, having that denial and that arrogance. And, you know, my GP said, you know, you you seem unwell. You know, how much are you drinking? And I divided it by about four. And they said, geez, that's a lot. And and and then my GP said to me, Oh, that can't be fun. And I went, you know, how dare you tell me what's fun and what isn't, you know, that that arrogance. So this is I'm doing this, this is my thing. Um, and the whole reversal of, you know, thinking that it's the world that's making me drink, right? It you know, um then, you know, it like people say there's a you know, a moment of clarity. Um, for me, my moment of clarity is a little different. Um, because you know, at that point I hadn't seen my kids for about six months. My dad had kept coming over on a Sunday to see the kids, they weren't there. I didn't have the heart to tell him. Um and eventually I just couldn't, you know, I just said to him, you know, I I've they've been they've been, you know, taken away. I can't see them anymore. And he was upset. And I started to think this isn't just about me now. Right. That was the other sort of self pity thing that, you know, I realized that my behavior was having an effect on many people. And it wasn't all about me having a pity party. Um And self-pity is a huge thing for alcoholism. So I, you know, that was the point where I decided I needed to do something about it. And Alcoholics Anonymous had not appeared on my radar before then. Um and then I just kept trying to stop and I couldn't. Um my final sort of attempt at that uh was in December 2022. Um and it was just before Christmas, and I attempted to stop. Um and of course I'm just you know, one of the things you should never do is just stop. But of course I tried to do that. Became incredibly sick. Um, you know, I was hallucinating and hearing things and vomiting and there was blood and you know all sorts of terrible things. I eventually called an ambulance and they took me to the hospital, which was very traumatic because I was ramped and it was really bad and I was, you know. I finally got in there and for the first time one of the doctors there said to me, Um, you know, do you drink a lot? And I said, Yeah, a lot. I drink a lot. And they said, Okay, there's things we can do for that. Anyway, here's a number that you should call when you get out of here. And they actually detoxed me in hospital without me knowing what they were doing. Um, they gave me um benzos and opioids, which I probably shouldn't have taken, but given the therapeutic nature of it, I didn't have a problem with it. But I was in that hospital room and I was really unwell, and I was so sick that I didn't get to grab anything. I had no phone, no nothing. I was just in there. And uh they'd put me into a ward with you know, a lot of elderly people who sadly didn't have anywhere else to go around Christmas, uh, and they were all dying. Uh, and they were dying loudly around me day and night, and it was really awful, super horrible, one of the you know, quite possibly the worst experience of my life. And I've had a few, and it was really up there. And I got out of hospital on the 24th of December. I got a mate to drive me home, and I said, mate, that is it. I am never drinking again. And I know I've said that again. We used to have a joke and say, I'm not never drinking again, again. But I said to him, mate, this is it, never again. That was weight, that was just the most awful thing that's ever happened. Five days later, I was drinking. And it was just that insanity of so I really didn't want to drink. I've heard people say, I'm drinking against my will. And you know, literally looking at uh the booze in my hand going into my mouth and not wanting to do it, and just thinking, What is you know? And I was bereft. Um, you know, that was a three-day absolute, you know, terrible bender. Um, I was I was really, really, really upset. And I I had been calling an online help service, and I called them and they said, Oh, it sounds like you're an alcoholic. And I said, Come on, you know, really. And they said, Look, I'm not supposed to say this, but you know, I'm an alcoholic. This is the person on the other end of the call, and uh I go to meetings. You should probably go to a meeting. And I went, at this point, like I have what we call the gift of desperation. She said to me, I know where you live, there's a meeting around the corner from you, go to that, in Marambina. I said, Okay. And she goes, If you like it, you like it. If you don't, you don't, but see what you know, take what you need from it. If you know, if you don't like it, we'll work on something else. And I walked into that meeting um and I actually saw someone I recognized from drinking a long time ago, which was amusing. Um, but um I instantly ID'd. Um, I saw the first step uh and realized that yeah, I was I was powerless and my life had become completely unmanageable. It was obvious. Um and that sort of yeah, feeling of me being like, Oh, I'm not like the you know, I'm not an alcoholic, hearing the shares and just just you know identifying with everybody, going, right, right, okay, that's what I am. And one of the older members there who uh I think had a sobriety of about 25, 30 years at the time, just said two two things. And he said, All you need to do is not pick up the first drink under any circumstances and just do it for a day at a time. And that was the thing that I couldn't get my head around initially, was I I know I have to stop, and I I I didn't realize like I needed to stop forever, but I couldn't contemplate forever. I could contemplate a day at a time. You know, it was at that point, you know, an hour at a time. So um, but I could do a day at a time, and from that moment, um that that was the penny dropped. That was what I needed to hear at the time. Uh and since that first meet meeting, I have not picked up a drink. Um, I now chair those meetings. Uh, I have the keys to the church. Uh and you know, it's it's it's uh, you know, my my my kids now live with me full-time, just as another point. So some of the things they say in the promises do actually occur. Um so you know, I couldn't have done it without the fellowship. Um, it's the other people, it's the people giving you the numbers, it's the reaching out, it's the service. Um, and it's just, you know, all you all you need to do to qualify is to have a desire to stop drinking, and that's it. Um, and if that's what you want, I would suggest that uh AA is the gold standard. So very gratefully so for today. Three and a half years, and uh thanks very much for listening. Uh so at this point, uh, we will read The Promises of AA, uh, which is from page 83 of the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. Um, if we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are halfway through. We're going to know a new freedom and a new happiness. We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others. That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear. We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows. Self-seeking will slip away. Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change. Fear of people and fear of economic insecurity will leave us. We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us. We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves. Are these extravagant promises? We think not. They are being fulfilled among us, sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. They will always materialize if we work for them.

SPEAKER_00 50:17

Thanks everyone for their shares. If you're worried about your drinking, contact AA on 1300 222 222, and you'll be connected to another alcoholic. You can find a list of Australian meetings at meetings.aa.org.org.au. You are now able to chat to an alcoholic online on the AA Australia website, aai.org.au. We've had the Marinbina group in the studio. They meet on Monday evenings in Marinbina at the Uniting Church at 7 30 p.m. You can access these recordings on aameetingpodcastmelbour.com, Apple Podcasts and Spotify, and at aatimes.org.au. And I'll just unmute everyone and we'll say the serenity prayer. God is the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.

SPEAKER_01 51:14

Thanks for sharing.

SPEAKER_00 51:16

Never leave. How'd you find that experience?

SPEAKER_03 51:21

Yeah, good. It was like a meeting to me. It's just pretty similar. I was trying not to sort of uh overthink what I was going to share, but I wanted to try and get some of the things in that like made me get there and you know the benefits that I got from it. So I forgot to mention the Serenity Prayer, which you know, I think saying that you know, that whole what you can and can't control is just so huge.

unknown 51:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 51:49

Right. And then you just it and look, you know, even for a non-religious, you know, people say you gotta give it over to God or give it over to the universe. But that whole thing of like, well, I can't do anything about it.

SPEAKER_02 51:57

So when I was like finding like my concept of a higher power, the serenity prayer kind of still is, really. Yeah, it's like what can I change? What can't I change? That's like kind of you know, because what I can't change, that may as well just be God, you know? Like what I can change, that's that's what I got.

SPEAKER_01 52:13

So like I'm not gonna be able to understand you know, that thing about you give me the wisdom to understand the difference between those two things because often we're we're so we've been so intent on controlling everything that that we lose that capacity to to differentiate. Um so yeah, I find the serenity. I usually drop the God thing at the beginning, but that's just me. Um it's I I um you know I've worked in faith-based organizations and um they didn't get me, so uh I I often wonder whether my sobriety would it be of better quality if I believed in God or something or a higher power, but it's pretty good as it is. So um I'm I you know don't change what you don't have to, I think. So um I don't know, one day it might all be revealed to me. I don't know, but um, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 53:11

I'm telling you, I've been I've been clinically dead a few times. Sorry? I've been dead a few times. Yeah, nothing. Nothing there is a white light, uh, and you do revisit your life like it flashes before you, that's a thing, but I think that's just some chemical reaction in your brain just going into you know, standby, we're shutting down. Please, you know, wait for the updates to install. That's cool. I mean, but but who knows, right? That's just my experience.