A New Freedom Brunswick - 13 June 2026

Members from A New Freedom Brunswick share their experience, strength and hope on The Spirital Experience from the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous. 

A New Freedom meet at 8.00pm on Fridays for one hour at the Balam Balam Place Community Centre in Brunswick. The meeting is a spritual concepts meeting.

https://aatimes.org.au/meeting/a-new-freedom-friday

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

You are listening to Meetings, Madam Melbourne.

SPEAKER_04 0:08

I'd like to welcome everyone to the Meetings Madame Melbourne podcast based in Melbourne, Australia. My name is Rosie. I'm an alcoholic and I'll be your chairperson for this meeting. Today we have a new Freedom Brunswick group on the podcast. They meet at Ballum Ballum Place Community Centre in Brunswick at 8 p.m. on Fridays for an hour. This is a spiritual concepts meeting, and at the meeting there's a reading on the spiritual experience, followed by speakers sharing their experience, strength, and hope on their recovery from alcoholism. I will now hand this meeting over to Oscar, who will chair who will chair the meeting and pick speakers.

SPEAKER_00 0:47

Hi, I'm Oscar and I'm an alcoholic. Welcome everyone to A New Freedom. This is an open spiritual concepts meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. I'd like to start by respectfully acknowledging the traditional custodians of the lands on which we are all meeting today, the Wandry people of the Kulin Nation, and paying my respects to their elders past and present. My name is Oscar, and I'm an alcoholic. I already said that. Let's begin the meeting with a moment's silence for the alcoholic who still suffers inside and outside of the rooms. 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. This is a spiritual concept meeting whereby we read the spiritual experience as it appears in Appendix 2 of the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. We will then share our experience strength and hope as it relates to the spiritual concepts and our alcoholism.

SPEAKER_06 2:16

Spiritual experience. The terms spiritual experience and spiritual awakening are used many times in this book, which, upon careful reading, shows that the personality change sufficient to bring about recovery from alcoholism has manifested itself among us in many different forms. Yet it is true that our first printing gave many readers the impression that these personality changes or religious experiences must be in the nature of sudden and spectacular upheavals. Happily for everyone, this conclusion is erroneous. In the first few chapters, a few sudden revolutionary changes are described. Though it's not our intention to create such an impression, many alcoholics have nevertheless concluded that in order to recover, they must acquire an immediate and overwhelming God consciousness, followed at once by a vast change in feeling and outlook. Among our rapidly growing member membership of thousands of alcoholics, such transformations, though frequent, are by no means the rule. Most of our experiences are what the psychologist William James calls the educational variety, because they develop slowly over a period of time. Quite often, friends of the newcomer are aware of the difference long before he is himself. He finally realizes that he has undergone a profound alteration in his reaction to life, that such a change could hardly have been brought about by himself alone. What often takes place in a few months could hardly have been accomplished by years of self-discipline. With few exceptions, our members find that they have tapped an unsuspected inner resource, which they presently identify with their own conception of a power greater than themselves. Most of us think this awareness of a power greater than ourselves is the essence of spiritual experience. Our more religious members call it God consciousness. Most emphatically, we wish to say that any alcoholic capable of honestly facing his problems in the light of our experience can recover, provided he does not close his mind to all spiritual principles. He can only be defeated by an attitude of intolerance or belligerent denial. We find that no one need have difficulty with the spirituality of the program. Willingness, honesty, and open-mindedness are the essentials of recovery, but these are indispensable. There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments, and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance. That principle is contempt prior to investigation. Herbert Spencer.

SPEAKER_00 4:49

Thank you. Um we'll now open the meeting for sharing, and I will go first. I'm Oscar and I'm an alcoholic.

unknown 4:58

Hi Oscar.

SPEAKER_00 5:00

I um when I came into AA, you know, I grew up in uh a very academic household where logic and reason and um solving your own problems uh on under your own willpower was kind of the normal way to do things. And so after 15 years or so of um heavy drinking and alcoholism, uh, you know, I came into AA, and the first thing I saw on the wall was this big, big sign that said God on it, and uh God was sprinkled throughout the steps and in the serenity prayer, which was also hanging on the wall. And um I was in a rehab at the time, and the psychiatrist of the rehab said to me, it was a 12-step rehab, thankfully, and the psychiatrist at the rehab said to me, because he knew about my background, he said, Oh, you're gonna have a problem with this God thing, aren't you? And uh luckily for me at that point, you know, I was so broken enough that I was willing, you know, it talks about in that reading open-mindedness, willingness, and something else. Um, but I was willing, I I had enough willingness to uh say to the psychiatrist, you know, I'm I'm I'll do whatever uh is suggested, you know, because I I was all out of options. Uh when I came into AA, you know, I was on the verge of homelessness, I hadn't had a job for years, relationships were breaking down, I was lying to everybody and I hated myself. And I was drinking um all around the clock. And so when when someone offered me a solution at my first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous, uh, I was willing to pick up the tools and take on that's that the suggestions that were suggested to me. So I feel very grateful that that was the case for me. You know, uh I've never really had a problem with uh the spiritual aspect of the program, even though I think the whole program is is spiritual. Um and that's because of the desperation that I had when I first came in to change um what was going on in my life. And since then, you know, through working the steps, having that willingness opened the door to um and opened my mind to the idea of working the steps. And since then, you know, my life has just got continuously better. Um step three was the first time that I ever took any kind of uh spiritual action, and that involved I've done it uh a bunch of times with a bunch of different sponsors, but the first one or the second one that I had was a guy from LA, and he was um he was very LA. And so we would do we would do step work in his car. Uh we would read the book together in his car on the street, and then when it came time to do step three, he said, Okay, now we're gonna pray on our knees. And so I got out onto the street in Surrey Hills in Sydney, and I got on my knees with this guy. Um it was like 11 o'clock in the morning, and there were people walking around, and and I said the third step prayer with him, and you know, I started to have uh what I now call a spiritual experience, you know. And the rest of the steps have um have have given me different aspects of that spiritual experience as well. Um I I didn't want to do step five. Uh I was terrified of it. And um, but when I when I did get the courage to do that and circumstances put me into a position where I needed to do that, I um at the end of it, you know, my sponsor said to me, you know, we've just spent, I think it was probably six or eight hours, my first step five. We've just spent this amount of time uh talking about your your defects and and the things that um you know that you need to take responsibility for. But I want you to also remember that you have assets as well. And he told me that I was, you know, um a very uh sensitive and kind and gentle man and that I had a lot to offer the world. And at that point, you know, um I I was pretty teary because I it had been years since anyone had genuinely said anything nice to me that I could remember. Um, and that was a beautiful experience as well. And he told me to go go out and do steps six and seven on my own and and pick somewhere uh that I really loved. And and from a young age, you know, I've I've always been um very interested in the ocean. And I love scuba diving, I love diving on the reef and and looking at all the fish and animals and turtles and stuff. And so I took myself off to uh the Sydney aquarium and I spent the day there by myself, uh just reflecting on my step four and five and thinking about my defects and thinking about my assets and and and and thinking about how um I could, you know, how I was willing, I wanted I was willing to have the willingness to have those removed. And that was that was a beautiful, beautiful experience for me as well. And, you know, we talk a lot about, well, I talk a lot about um step 12 in in the meeting that we have in Brunswick on a Friday night. And it says that that step, you know, having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, um, we tried to practice these principles in all our affairs. But the main thing I I like to point out in in our meeting about that is um, you know, when I first came in and and subsequently the people that I've talked to who have come in, uh newcomers, I'm trying to say, um, they they sometimes think that they need to have a conception of God or a spiritual awakening as it's described in the book, which is like a blinding flash of light um in a hospital bed uh brought to your knees. You feel the wind of God blowing through and through and such. Um, and that that was never my experience. And and what it says in the steps is having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps. And that that has totally been my experience. You know, for me it was of the educational variety. Um, it happens slowly over time. Little experiences. Another one I remember, um, you know, I had my first job in recovery, uh, and I had to go to my boss and confess something that I had done improperly or lied about or whatever, something little, you know, nothing consequential. And I was terrified of doing this. And I remember that was probably the first time that as I was walking to her office, um, I was saying the serenity prayer over and over and over again. And then I went in and I had the courage to like say, look, this is what I did. It wasn't right. Um, what can I do to fix it? And and it was completely fine, of course. But like I'd never I totally I completely relied on that prayer in that moment, and it got me through that moment. And and that's what I'm talking about. All these little kind of spiritual moments peppered throughout my recovery and my life since I got sober have have just given me a lot of evidence um that which bolsters my my overall spiritual experience. And and yeah, if if you're if when I came in and you know, I had no idea about this, and I thought I needed to know, especially in step two, I needed to know what God was and um and have this this sort of picture in my head of what God was, and and it doesn't say that, you know, it says, came to believe. Um so yeah, I often like to talk about how um the steps are a recipe. And and if I want to make a cake, then all I have to do is follow a recipe. And if I want to have a spiritual experience, then the steps are the recipe for that. Um and yeah, since getting sober, you know, I've um coming from someone uh uh coming from a place where uh my best my best plan was to kill myself on the street uh by not eating for months until I ran out of money and just and just drinking um and using whatever I could, you know, coming from that place to uh getting mostly HDs at university, um having a job, being in a relationship, like rebuilding my um my relationships with my family, um, you know, making amends to my friends and and and uh trying to um fix the harms that I've done to people and and also like I can't talk about enough, you know, the the change inside me that's happened as well. Um it's it's more about having peace of mind and self-confidence and and believing that I am worthwhile of being on the planet. That is that is a huge spiritual experience for me. Um so I'm gonna wrap it up pretty quickly, but I guess uh, you know, just the fact that I don't need to drink anymore and I can go through difficult life challenges um without even thinking about picking up a drink and dealing with life on life's terms um uh is a huge change for me. I never thought that that would be possible. And and I believe that that is, you know, that is uh that is a spiritual experience as described in in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. You know, I'm a completely different person now than I was when I was drinking, um, and that is you know due to uh having the willingness to do the suggested things in AA, and I'm very, very grateful for that. So I will leave it there, and I guess I will ask Rose if you would like to share next, please.

SPEAKER_03 14:26

Thanks, Oscar. Um my name's Rose, and I'm an alcoholic. Um yeah, I love this topic, and um you know we read this reading at the beginning of every single one of our meetings every week, and it just seems to get deeper and richer. Um someone recently said, you know, maybe maybe there's something else that could be read as well, or you know, like, is this enough, this piece of writing? And I think it just opens up um such a big world in AA and in my life and in my experience of recovery. I I was really confused when I came into AA because I just did not understand what spirituality had to do with my drinking. You know, I had done, you know, education in drug and alcohol counseling, I'd been trained in harmonimization, you know, it was all very like black and white and um, you know, A plus B equals C. And why was I sitting here with God being such a big part of um, you know, this kind of like pathway to recovery and um but yeah, over my over the time I've come to realise that um the things that I needed to change I can't change them. I can't sit down and say, I need to change this really big thing about myself and I'm just gonna change it because I consciously know in my brain that that's what I want to change. It just doesn't work like that. And um I've understood in AA as a spiritual program that um the steps and the concepts and you know, they are all tools towards um changing in such a way that you know, when I was 14 I started drinking really, really heavily. Um and I drank like that for you know until I was 42 when I came into AA. And I didn't understand why, you know, I had a lot of spiritual experiences in my life. I wasn't someone, you know, who was absent of a spiritual life, but I would get really wildly drunk and then lie on the floor in the fetal position and cry and like call out to God. You know, that was my like contact with the spiritual world. It was like get as wasted as possible and then like reach out for this, like and when I was sober, there was no way I was praying or listening to um, you know, the guidance of a power greater than myself or anything. Like sobriety just absolutely sucked. Sobriety was like hard and it was harsh, and I felt a lot of pain in the world, and I didn't want to be in the world, you know. There was something definitely missing from I I remember when I was 21, I had like a major breakdown with alcohol and drugs, and I ended up in on the floor in my um boss's office, just crying my eyes out, and my mum had to come and pick me up, and um, I ended up getting fired and sent to drug and alcohol counseling, and um, you know, it didn't end up well that experience. But I remember going home that day and just saying to my mum, I don't want to be here, like I don't want to be on the earth. And that for me is what drinking was from the age of 14. It was a spiritual experience for me the first time I got drunk because the world just felt like it belonged to me, like I felt like I belonged to it when I was drunk. And that to me was like the first time I fitted in and the first time I felt good, and I just thought this is how it's gotta be. This is like my spiritual experience. And, you know, I spent so many years chasing that feeling of like if I just get wasted, I'm gonna feel that feeling again. But that feeling just was like harder and harder to get to. And um, you know, I came into AA when I was 42. I was pretty broken. I woke up on the floor one morning after having passed out. Um I'm a pretty tall person, and so like banging my head was, you know, pretty painful, I assume. Um, and you know, I had blood on me and vomit on me, and I'd wet myself, and I was just thinking, why am I in this position at the age of 42? Like, why haven't I grown out of this like behavior of getting absolutely wasted and you know, searching for this like high that just doesn't even exist anymore? And I ended up in AA, and you know, the first step really got me the unmanageability and the you know not having um control and power over my alcohol use. Um it spoke to me immediately and it allowed me to identify that I was an alcoholic because you know my life was just I didn't have a job, I didn't have a partner, I didn't have a house, I didn't have, you know, I didn't have so many things in my life. I didn't have possibility and opportunity. I was just drinking at home by myself all the time. And my life was so small, and I didn't want friends and I didn't want any of these things because I just wanted to get drunk and I just wanted to get that feeling of not being in the world. And um yeah, so I um came into AA and I got the first step and um I didn't, you know, there's sort of aspects of this program that are suggested that you do, which is, you know, get yourself a sponsor, start doing the steps with your sponsor, go to as many meetings as you can, you know, call other alcoholics, don't pick up a drink, call someone else if you feel like picking up a drink. Um, you know, they're pretty simple if you follow the recipe. Um and I wasn't doing these things, but I also wasn't drinking because I'd kind of had this experience of the first step. And so I was really, really like insane. And I, you know, was in and out of psych hospitals for the first year of my recovery because I just had put down the solution of alcohol and I hadn't picked up the solution of Alcoholics Anonymous. Um but when I did that, when I got my sponsor and started doing the steps, everything shifted and everything changed. And it is just a process of change, I think, this spiritual experience. It's like so many things are happening in my life now that are making me a different person than I who I was. And I never knew how I was going to put down the alcohol and how I was going to be okay with that. And I have changed enormously. You know, I after two years of um recovery. I stopped smoking and I'd been a you know full-time smoker um since I was 14 as well. And a year and a half after that, I've um given up sort of alcoholic sugar consumption. Um and, you know, I'm just like making these steps and I'm changing as a person. I was just telling uh someone else at this meeting before the meeting that um I was in another meeting the other night and someone brought up that it was unfair that they had to pay for an event because they were working in the event. And I was chairing the meeting, and um I just suddenly like it came up in me to say to this person, Well, everyone else is paying, so you have to pay, or you know, we don't operate like that here. We're going to, you know, just have an attitude of service and we're all gonna pay. And, you know, like it arked up in me to like control the situation. And then something happened in me, and I just said, okay, well, you don't have to pay. If that's how you see it, you don't have to pay. Does anyone else not want to pay? And no one else said that they wanted to pay. And then we just like made it that that's how it was, and then we moved on. And it was just this like, you know, to me, it's this profound change. It sounds like such a simple thing, but it's such a profound change in who I am to not like completely control the whole situation. And yeah, I'm just so grateful, especially to this meeting and having it on a weekly basis that we can like look at. I get to look at my life through the spiritual lens of AA. And um AA for me is definitely, you know, a spiritual program because um yeah, everything I've just said. So I'll leave it there. Thanks.

SPEAKER_00 23:59

Thanks, Rose.

SPEAKER_01 24:00

Uh Jack, what do you like to share? Hi, my name is Jack. I'm an alcoholic. There's um a book I'm trying to remember. Uh I think it's the start of Dracula, of all things. And it's a concept that the book starts outlining that if you're open to minor superstitions, you're open to larger superstitions. So if you're scared of Friday the 13th, or if you're worried when you break a mirror or open an umbrella inside, you're susceptible to a vampire and garlic and all these other things. Right. And what I take from that, what I ruminate on that, is that if you're open to the little things, if you say bless you when someone sneezes, if you're willing to cry on the floor and pray to God when you're hammered, then you're not far away from being open to a spiritual concept with everything else. For me, uh growing up in the South in the States, uh, my family religion was just accepted, right? It was just what what we did. Um, we were we found the term later in life called uh salad bar Catholics, like we pick and choose. So we were definitely there on Easter, we were definitely there on Christmas. Um, my mom definitely wouldn't let us have girls, or in my case, boys over um before marriage. But we didn't go every Sunday, and you were just accepted that just yep, the picture of the Pope hangs there, the cross is over there, that's just how it goes, and that's okay. Um, and if you accept those things, you know what I mean, then God is in your life all the time, and that's enough. And when I first came to AIA when I was 26, I'm 30. No, I was 28 when I first came. I'm 36 now. Uh, I knew I had a problem, but I just didn't want to listen. I refused. I used every excuse I could find to not show up. They don't like me. They're I'm different, I'm special. Oh, God, they're meeting in a church. It's Christian, I don't have to be here. Fuck that. Um and that's really, you know, and then I just went out drinking for another. I'm not gonna do math, long time. Um and what I see now because what I thought when I first came to AA and these concepts of spiritual experiences and things, it was a term that doesn't get used here, but I love so much. Uh, is called god-bothering. And that's what I figured a lot of this was, you know, these god-bothers coming around here. And but I was so beaten, I was so desperate. I learned, and I knew already, but I quickly picked up that I was that's just a good excuse to not listen. That's just a good excuse to keep drinking because that's what I wanted to do. It had to take me back to a prison cell, back to where I had nothing left, to be able to say, okay, let's give it a try. Because my mom can't stop me, I can't stop me, the law can't stop me. All right, let's give this, let's give this a go. And what I thought was gonna be, you know, going to church every Sunday, reading the Bible, a lot of praying, a lot of, you know, lemonade drinking and you know, not cussing and listening to terrible music. It's I that expectation is the same expectation I had about the great, you know, white miracle that Oscar was talking about earlier, right? Where it was, you know, you think your lightning bolt's gonna hit you and you're gonna be this devout, pure person. And that's not my experience. I have had spiritual experiences, specifically in AA, in this program of recovery, but it was not anything that I wasn't already open to. I'm more open to it now because I'm not hammered all the time and I'm not consumed by the desire to drink and to alter my mind and to get away from all the pain and the emotions that I have. I'm open to feeling these things now, and open to these experiences. Uh a lot of it for me comes in these really small ways. And the spiritual experiences I have now are always in these little details that I'm not looking for. So, for example, this week, um I was at a meeting on Wednesday, and we they do the daily reading, and it was all about impatience. And that's what I'd been experiencing for weeks: just being impatient, wanting things to hurry up, wanting people to be on my schedule. Uh, I love, you know, I'm very unique in this that I love control and control over other people. You know, Rose over there can't relate. Um and the reading hit me so hard, you know, first thing in the morning amongst all these other alcoholics, I was so upset. And that's usually my usual response these days to these moments, because you find these coincidences, these uh, if you want to get into Jung, right, these synchronicities that happen that feel so impactful. And I get so upset because it's taken me so long to experience these things. It's these obvious moments in my life where things are wonderful and things are beautiful, and like the issues are all so simple. And that's such a gift, and that's such that's a mentality that I haven't had, right? To see the fact that I was always open to these little things, right? To carrying a rosary whenever I would go on a plane, right? Just just in case. Yeah, you know, it's not gonna hurt and it doesn't cost it's that much extra weight. Um but I was always open to these things, but I could never see them until I got all that baggage out of the way. Uh the biggest experience I ever had was when I was trying to leave AA. I was maybe a couple months in, and I was heading, I didn't have a car at the time, so I had to train and tram all the way from Brunswick to Pran to get to a meeting with my sponsor. And I was just in a bad mood, and things weren't going the way I wanted it to. And, you know, it dawned on me like we focus on a lot of negativity in AA. It's all this just thinking about the negative stuff. This is this must be the problem. This must be the problem. Oh, well, I told my sponsor I'd read this 12 and 12, I better start reading that. And so, you know what I mean? It was as dumb as it can get, where you're just, you know, I'm gonna defy this, but I'm gonna keep reading. And I got to the meeting, and I've shared this in this meeting before, and it was on the part of the book where they, um, I can't remember the page, but it's in the towards the beginning, where they talk about the cocktail recipe, right? Where the guy deviates from the program, he isolates himself, his job's not going the way he wants to, so he decides to have a glass of milk with a shot of whiskey, which is the only part of the book that has a recipe in it. And horrible, horrible recipe. And he has about four or five of them and is hammered and just goes off and ends up back in the hospital and all these terrible things. And in that moment, it's quite silly, right? Because you know, it's a very alcoholic thing to you can see yourself doing at least I can see myself doing it. Where, you know, oh well, whiskey doesn't count if you drink a glass of milk with it, right? That's different. Um, just like you know, well, if I don't accept God and I don't accept, you know, a higher power, then I'm different and special. So this AA won't work for me because I, you know, take my God with a glass of whiskey. Um and in that moment I'm sitting there next to some friends while they're someone's up there reading because it was a book study, and I just felt all this anger and all this resentment and all this stress I'd been holding on to literally lift out of me. You know what I mean? Like it went up, is the best I can describe it. And I could breathe. And I just started laughing in the middle of this meeting, and I couldn't stop. I was in tears just like I had to leave the room. It was so funny. And it was these little moments now that no one else seems to get. They're little private moments that only matter to me and my higher power, and it's changed my life. Nothing on the surface has changed really. I mean, yeah, plenty. I mean, like, you know, I've lost weight, I don't drink, I have my finance together, my family talks to me again. Um all these wonderful things have happened, sure. But on the inside, right, yes, there's been this huge growth, but it's always in these private little tiny moments, right? Like when you're walking and you see, you know, a cloud that looks a certain way, right? And I'm not saying that's my higher power or something, but it's that's the best way I can describe these like tiny little moments that make sense to no one else but you. And that's where my higher power comes in. And I spent 34, 35 years looking for that uniqueness, looking for that, you know, private message that only Jack can decipher because I'm so terminally unique that didn't come until I gave up, until I stopped trying to look for it. I don't look for these moments. Again, they piss me off because my answers are always it's always my ego, it's always, it's always within me. And it's this really important part of me that I never thought I would experience and I never thought I would have in my life. Certainly not in AA. I was just trying not to drink. I'm still trying not to drink. Uh, but it's a lot easier these days. And most days it's actually not even a problem because most days I don't even have it. Uh I'm really grateful to be here today. So thank you guys so much.

SPEAKER_00 34:06

Thanks, Jack. Sophie, would you like to share?

unknown 34:09

Yeah, sure.

SPEAKER_02 34:10

Hi, I'm Sophie. I'm an alcoholic. Um, it's just so crazy to be here on like a Saturday morning at 10 30. Um when that is just not who I was, like a few years ago. Um even or like even just doing something that's nerve-wracking, oh, podcast scary, like, you know, I just used to shut myself away from the world as much as possible. And if I did have to go out into the world, I would just, you know, do it trash, do it um so drunk, because it was kind of the only way I could face things. I really like this reading. Um my sponsor has made me read it quite a few times, and he gave me the homework of going home and seeing how many times I could find uh the word change or like a time that it talks about change. And I found quite a few, and I he it just really pointed out to me, you know, like spiritual experience. You know, I thought it would maybe would be this like glittery, glamorous, awesome, like high-inducing thing. And actually, like it's much like the rest of this program, it's actually just really simple and it's really tangible. It actually is just like a change, a change in character. Um, for example, you know, like when I'm spiritually fit, when I'm working um this program, I'm I'm such a different person. Like on Thursday, I had a really long day at work. It was really busy. And then um, I work in a deli and there was loads of sweet treats that were left over. And um, you know, I could have taken them all home for myself, or I could have even just thrown them in the bin. Um, but instead I went straight to a meeting and I took them all to a meeting. And even though I really wanted to at least take one or two for myself, because I love sweet treats, like only had half of one. And I shared the rest with the group and I insisted that everybody take them home. And it was a really long day. But then as soon as I got home, I did the washing up. And I don't often do the washing up, usually my partner does it. But you know, I was just on that like, I wasn't thinking about myself all day because I was so busy and um I had service to do. And it's times like that when I just go about my day and I I don't think about myself. I don't take the kind of you know, easy way out. And I get into bed, I do my step tens before bed, and I'm like, oh wow, I haven't thought about myself today. It's such a relief. It's so nice. And like when I first came into AA, I didn't think that was a spiritual day or a spiritual experience. I thought like I'd find God when I did ayahuasca or, you know, I did a Vipassana retreat and like, you know, just have this like, yeah, earth-shattering perspective change. And actually, it's like I feel most spiritual when I don't think about Sophie. Um when I manage to tune out from the Sophie show, like it's actually such a relief. Um, but I'm I'm really grateful that like my experience before AA, um, I was very like, I guess, like, yeah, kind of spiritually inclined, or I was really interested in yoga and meditation. And these were things I always wanted to pursue, but um I didn't have any friends or anybody in my life who like reflected those values or seemed to have any interest. And I don't know whether it's just being like a teenager or it was my specific friends, or it's being an alcoholic or what, but like I felt terrified to ever like say to anyone, you know, oh, do you have an interest in like meditation? Or, you know, I just I just was terrified. I was just so afraid of the judgment. Um, and so I really kept it to myself for so long, I didn't really think anybody in my life would understand um my interest in that. And, you know, but I did hang out with a bunch of people who uh drunk and and and drugged a lot. And so yeah, it did kind of come out as okay, I'll just do a bunch of psychedelics and like that's my spiritual experience, you know. And I'm really interested in the whole like um psychonaut kind of thing. And um still intellectually, I guess I am, but like, you know, I was basically always searching and I had this feeling as well that like I was gonna be sober at some point in my life, you know. I like I didn't want to be the person I was. I was rude and selfish and self-centered and, you know, miserable, so miserable. My life was full of so much despair and self-obsession. Like I couldn't, I didn't know how I was gonna live to the age of 30 if at 20 I was causing this or finding myself in this kind of chaos that I was, where yeah, I didn't want to be alive. Um I just I could but I couldn't see a way forward. But I knew who I really wanted to be deep down, like even below the arrogance and the ego thinking I, you know, was some like genius in hiding, I, you know, and a limo was gonna pull up and take me away from the pub and recognize me for what I was, you know. We even below the kind of like that alcoholic thinking, like the book talks about, I just knew I was like, I don't want to drink. Like I started journaling at the age of 17, and all I would ever write about was like, tomorrow I'm not gonna drink. Tomorrow I'm not gonna take that drug, you know, like tomorrow I'm gonna do better. Like, I wanna, you know. And every day I'd find myself in the same place at break from college in the skate park, smoking. And like it was like someone would pass something to me or, you know, offer me to go to the pub. And before I could say no, I was in the next moment and I'd said yes, and I was doing the thing I didn't want to do. Um and that was so bizarre to me. So I I always knew I was like, I don't, I don't want to be doing this. Um but I but yeah, I really thought it would take moving to some commune. You know, I knew someone who went to like a carrot farm commune in Portugal, and I thought it would take that kind of thing for me to have this life beyond my wildish dreams. And then, you know, my thinking, I had I had what we might call a rock bottom around 20 and a probably probably another one at 21, um, similar to what other people have shared today. And, you know, that level of despair and hopelessness and and suicidal ideation didn't get me sober. That's not what put um distance between me and a drink and a drug. Um, but when I turned, I don't know, 22 maybe, I just decided, I think it was a New Year's resolution. I was kind of like, I just am fed up actually of like pretending that I don't have an interest in, I don't know, meditation or religious stuff or whatever. And, you know, I just I I kind of saw how my friends, when I said, hey guys, you know, I'm gonna try to stop drinking, like nobody really understood. I didn't have anyone to talk to about this stuff. And I realized one day I was like, yeah, I don't trust any of my friends. And actually, I don't even trust myself. Like, I keep picking up a drink when I say I'm not gonna pick up a drink, and I really don't want to. I feel out of control. Like, how spooky? I don't trust the person that I basically live with, you know, like myself. Um, and so it was like a New Year's resolution. I just decided, okay, I'm just gonna commit still privately, but I'm just gonna journal more. And kind of when I journal, actually, as if I'm talking to like a higher power or a higher self, you know, I was like very into this new age kind of woo-woo stuff, which I mean it did something because that year, 11 months later, into that year, I ended up finding AA. And and like it was okay, it was through a dating app, but like, you know, it still was the some strangely spiritual experience because I didn't want to go on a date with this guy. He asked me, I didn't know he was sober, he didn't know I was trying to get sober, and you know, something in me, my friend said he was attractive, and so I changed my mind. And I went on this date. And then, you know, like a week later, after some crazy alcoholic obsession, like I found myself in an AA meeting, you know, and like um that was a because that was a spiritual experience to me because uh it was just coincidence. It was things that lined up when they kind of shouldn't have. And I yeah, I'm really grateful that I I when I entered the rooms of AA, like I had the honesty, the openness, and the willingness. I don't know how or why. Maybe it's because I spent those past 11 months like journaling to a higher power and kind of letting God come into my life. Um, I was managing to get the longest amount of days in between drinks, which I had, you know, it was only ever like five or 10. Um, but it was something. And I do attribute that to some kind of willingness to like hand over my will, I guess, or kind of realize that like, yeah, maybe I'm not the best person to be running the Sophie show, you know, or maybe the Sophie show should actually just be canceled. Um and and yeah, you know, I didn't get the steps like I haven't picked up a drink since my first meeting, but um I didn't finish the steps through to 12 the first time round, you know. This stuff has been like, despite the fact that um I was very kind of rigorous with this stuff, I really gave it my all. I I mean I had nowhere else to be, like meetings and especially young people meetings, like I just threw myself at the fellowship. I I didn't want to hang out with my friends, I didn't like them, to be frank. So I just went to I just ate burgers with people after meetings and did this stuff to the best of my ability. But um, yeah, I I didn't finish the the steps until maybe I was two years sober. And um I've changed uh each each iteration of the steps I've done, each time I go to a meeting, each time, you know, I just work my program in different ways. Life as a sober alcoholic um is always changing, the same as life as a sober or just a normal person is always changing. Um but yeah, it's just the change I just change, and that's amazing because when I was drinking it was Groundhog Day and it was just chaos and chaos and chaos and nothing changed apart from the fact that I got more miserable. So I'm really grateful to be here and I'm grateful to be sober on a Saturday morning. Thanks.

unknown 43:34

Thanks, Sophie.

SPEAKER_00 43:35

Thanks, Sophie. Cell, what'd you like to share?

SPEAKER_06 43:40

Thanks, Oscar. My name's Sal. I'm a recovering alcoholic. Um Yeah, I'm glad that we we read that reading and um just enjoyed listening to um other people's shares and that AA is a spiritual program. Um I didn't know that when I came. Um, I just wanted to stop drinking and um yeah I I grew up in a religious family um and had a spiritual life. Um so yeah, I I got lots of good things um through my upbringing and but I yeah but I started drinking at 14. Um I had the spiritual experience with my first drink and you know feeling that warm feeling inside and uh how it sort of lit me up and um yeah I was carefree and um like yeah I just remember that so vividly um and then from then on pretty much swearing swearing off booze um hundreds of times I yeah just went through huge soul searching so yeah I had a relationship with a higher power had a connection um and I'd wake up with the four horsemen terror bewilderment frustration and despair and um just have no clue about how I ended up in the same situation uh when I drank and the yeah when I drank there's the personality change was just so extreme that I always knew I had a problem um and I always tried to control it and try to like find a way out but I couldn't and um yeah I think yeah just acting in conflict with my fundamental values and yeah I just I just didn't know that there was a way out I I didn't think anyone would actually be able to help me like a doctor or a therapist or that sort of stuff um and I I moved over to Melbourne and within a couple weeks of uh being in the city I had an experience um which for me was like a moment of clarity or epiphany something I've never had before um I'd had so many rock bottoms in my life um and this wasn't the worst this wasn't the worst night that I'd had um but it just got triggered off by something I read in the paper uh a famous sportsman he had um had a like a high profile blowout and um he'd done something that I'd done um and he was much younger than me at the time um even though I I was still youngish and uh and the media asked him did he think did they yeah did he think he was an alcoholic and he said yes and for me that just pierced something in me it was um I thought you know if he's saying he's an alcoholic and he's not as bad as me then I could be an alcoholic and um yeah and it just sort of led to a whole row of dominoes just in my in my thinking in that moment like in a period of like 30 seconds or a minute where I realized oh I might be out of control lots of things in my life but when it comes to alcohol I can't and I never will and um and I realized oh I just use alcohol like a drug I use it for the effect and I realized I'm addicted to it because I always go back to it no matter if I if I stop drinking and I get a bit of time up I will always go back and and and I would you know I'd have a thousand reasons not to drink and no reasons to drink and suddenly someone offers me a beer at a party or something and I just think oh yeah why not and and I and the same stuff happens. I can't drink safely um I black out and yeah and just wake up in that with the four horsemen again the next morning and the difference for me probably when that perfect storm sort of happened was I realized oh I'm an alcoholic and I need to go to AA and I knew of AA before but I didn't think it was for me. I didn't think like for whatever reason that yeah that I was an alcoholic. And I came into AA and didn't really understand what people were talking about but um I knew I knew about the drinking and I didn't really understand about recovery and and I started I got a sponsor and started doing the steps and it's through the steps that's opened up a whole new spiritual life to me. Probably much more inclusive and healthy and um yeah I I I yeah it's it's sort of like what I what I always wanted. I didn't want to be like living a self-destructive life but I couldn't find my way out of that cycle and um yeah I think I still it's just still a God or the higher power of my childhood that um that I still have that connection with but I think my relationship has changed um and yeah there's like I don't know there's so much to sort of say um in in that space but I I think the a spiritual concept meeting has been really important to me in my um recovery. I found one in Wellington in New Zealand a couple of years in into AA and um the people that I met met there their examples um listening to other people share about their spiritual experiences and and how they are staying sober. Like it it it's yeah I mean that changed the course of my life and um when I when I came over to Melbourne I knew that I wanted to find or start a spiritual concept meeting and um luckily this one had already just been started. And yeah for me now I think like I've only sort of recently moved back and um there's been lots of things that have happened um just moving over and initially like couldn't find a place to um to live and that brought up like all these existential things um and I I felt blessed that I had AA to come to like to already have like a spiritual community and to have that support like it just that helped me get over so much fear of like what I would normally be experiencing. And I I went to the secondhand bookshop and I found this book um like out of everything that was there it was on transitions and it's actually by someone who's in the rooms and um I don't know I wouldn't recommend it to everyone but it it really helped me and um and it's all AA kind of stuff. And uh yeah and just like even just finding that book and there was some more on the series as well that were there that I went back and got later on and um but I like yeah that that's like a God moment for me. Like nothing else stood out to me at the time and I just took a gamble on on on that book. And yeah like these other things I end up getting a place and where I end up settling it's like around a whole bunch of meetings and it's like or like couldn't have picked a better spot um and and I think that was like a co-creation because I was um praying for God's will and trying to discern what that was and um yeah just the other meetings that I've I've you know shopped around went to lots of different meetings and other things um and like all those all those things are like how I'm living my day or my life now um but it is trying to be God centered and um the fair stuff still comes up like actually what am I going to do for work and how's this going to all play out and um but I have to keep I have to keep going back to the basics of AA and um that is I do say in the morning first thing and at night time um thank God for keeping me sober and an AA I need to remember both parts of them um but also do genuinely try to like hand my will in my life over to God and and pray for the knowledge of God's will and the power to carry that out and um whatever that may be like there's stuff I don't want in life but I'm still open to that stuff happening and uh I think it's I still have the the gift of desperation. I don't want to run the show. I don't want the pain that comes with that. But having said that like I can experience emotions these days and know that they will pass and also be grateful for like the depth and the richness of of what I feel now. And um they were yeah that's like all the layers taken off from from when I came in. Had so much armour and just glad that I've had good people um to who've who have appeared on my path in recovery. People in AA so many people in AA but people outside of AA um where I've needed support and and that in itself has has been a massive thing just to be able to ask for help. You know coming from someone who was so independent and would never ask for anything a classic trait in in the rooms and um yeah just to know that I need help and that it's human and um I have lots of frailties and limitations and um and that's all that's okay. You know like I heard it before you I've got assets and gifts and strengths and other things and um you're just glad that I have a huge sense of belonging in AA that I'm happy to be here. Like it's not um I'm not sad I'm here. No one wants to come here you don't want to put on your CV but like this is like yeah it's what I was searching for I suppose and it gave me the opportunity to change the direction of my life so uh I'll just leave it there.

SPEAKER_00 54:04

Thank you that's all the time we have for sharing and thank you for everyone for sharing at this meeting please remember that anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our traditions ever reminding us to place principles before personalities. Who you see here, what you hear here when you leave here let it stay here that's kind of funny to do in a podcast. Remember that you may leave here and need never drink again and be happy about it. We will now say finished with the Serenity prayer.

SPEAKER_04 54:33

God accept the things I cannot change. And otherwise I'm just gonna make a couple of announcements um if you're worried about your drinking you can call AA on 1300 2222 to talk to another alcoholic and that phone line's open 247 and there's a list of Australian AA meetings at meetings.aa.org.au and at aa.org.au you can actually chat online to an alcoholic as well um so lots of ways to get in touch you can find these recordings on Apple Podcasts Spotify etc and they go up on aatimes.org.au as well um so everyone's unmuted how did you find that experience who wants to go first 10 minutes went too quickly yeah I was just like oh oh dang that was 10 minutes I talk a lot yeah there's something there's something about this format that m makes people very comfortable with sharing which is maybe a little counterintuitive when you first come in it's hard I noticed I agree with the 10 minutes thing it's a very you know it's a soundproof sterile room so I'm found myself drifting a lot and having which is great because it reminds me when I clock it then I'm like all right let's focus back in and listen to everybody.

SPEAKER_01 56:04

So that was a bit it was it's just different. It's so much different. I'm used to like in smaller meetings especially um uh new freedom you know what I mean there's these little moments where you kind of like look and nod at each other or like laugh together and it's just a little different here. So it definitely it eventually feels like a meeting right because of everyone shares and stuff but at first it's definitely like okay what am I doing?

SPEAKER_03 56:29

What is happening I actually like that everyone here knew that they were going to share today like you know like often you're sitting in a meeting and you're wondering oh I wonder if I'm gonna share today or there's sort of like only a certain amount of people share and because everyone here has been coming to this meeting like regularly it's actually really nice to hear from like a smaller group of people like really their take on on the meeting's theme.

SPEAKER_00 57:04

Yeah I just um I love doing things um to be of service in AA and so just coming here and especially like talking about myself um I don't know it's just like I know that I'm gonna have a good rest of the day like no matter what happens now because I've like started my day in this way you know um so yeah I always always up for service whenever I can well we might wrap the recording up there thanks so much everyone for your service