My name is Rebecka J. L. and I am an alcoholic.

This name, I believe, was not only parentally chosen, but God given. The name Rebecka means that mentally I am noted for my judgment and insight. I am, physically, a proud, high-spirited woman. Emotionally I am friendly and humorous. I have a personality which gives me an exciting life that is shared by my family. I have a will that is strong in my nature and my character allows me to enjoy integrity beyond compare. My motivation is that my family loves and respects me today.

Do you think I knew all that when I got here to Alcoholics Anonymous on August 12, 2000. I just love it when Mickey B. says “I knew nothing about nothing when I got here”.

I believe my isms began long before I took a drink of alcohol. At the age of three, seventy-five percent of my body was burned and I was given a minimal chance of living. My parents were told, when I did miraculously begin to recover, that I would be physically deformed, never play sports, never have children, and never be able to live a happy normal life.

I can recall my first day of kindergarten as my mother drove my older brother and I up to the school in her red metallic flake Pontiac. I can recollect the feeling of excitement at spending an entire day away from her and the yelling and abuse. At the first recess, disappointment came my way and I can still envision the children calling me names while throwing rocks at me and backing me into a corner. I had brick school house on one side of me and chain link fence on the other. All I could see in front of me was an angry mean mob and I felt trapped, alone, and afraid. This mental and emotional prison began a path down an isolated, hate filled, and self-pitying selfish path to hell. I would not be ok for a long time. The mental, emotional, and physical abuse is a pattern I used to cut and sew together a garment of an existence.

I began drinking at the age of fourteen; Except for a few brief periods, I drank daily, I drank to drink, and I drank to get drunk. See when I would look in the mirror I saw something so ugly and unworthy of love, something I relate to as Freddy Kruger. I was so filled with fear and hate on the inside that when I drank my reality and perception was altered to where I lived a life with no burns, no parents, no emotional scars, and no contempt for life and those about me. I believed I was strong, intelligent, beautiful, kind, friendly, and compassionate. I looked for all that so many years in the bottom of a bottle, but my actions and behaviors told a different story to the outside world. Yet, I truly believed that my alcoholic life was as normal as I the movies I kept playing in my head.

There were a few points in my life where I was able to not drink for almost a year and when I was pregnant at the age of seventeen was the first. I got pregnant on a drunk one night being in places I should not have been in and doing things that were against my morals and values. One more condition toward that pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization; one more step toward the progressive illness.

Defiance was already an outstanding characteristic for this alcoholic. Out of fear, shame, and low self-esteem I quit hanging around people, bold faced lied to my parents when they questioned me, and refused help from my real father when it was offered to me. I even wore a huge yellow shirt to school on which my mother had written in purple ink, “I am not pregnant.”

At about seven months my mother, determined to get me back into being a star track team member, made a doctors appointment for the required physical. I can laugh today at the fright when the doctor put on his stethoscope, listened around my stomach area, and announced “Oh my goodness, there are two heartbeats.” I, of course thought he meant twins, but it was just shock as he suddenly realized I was carrying a child at such a young age.

My parents were furious. My mother ranted and raved but my father never said a word, he just quit talking or looking at me all together. I did not care about her and inwardly was satisfied I had caused her some more grief. My heart was broken that I, one more time, had managed to hurt my father. He kept his distance until after my son was born, a healthy beautiful boy.

Life became more of a disappointment as my son was used as punishments against me or I had to ask my mother if I could take him anywhere or do anything with him. I began drinking again and became more defiant. The worse my attitude was the worse the mental, emotional, and physical abuse became.

I left home the day I turned eighteen in a fit of rage. I took my child and left behind an angry mother, a hurt father, confused brothers, and basically a distraught family. My parents took turns at post, vigilantly watching my ever move into and out of my trailer house. I was of age and they had no right to interfere or treat me; this was the mental attitude I had.

I picked up a hitchhiker one night and brought him home. Mother did not like him so within months we were engaged and married. I was sure this would be enough to get her to leave me alone. I was driving around drinking and picking up strange men off the street but this was my life to live and never thought of anyone else.

This man introduced me to drugs in a very harsh way. He was a black belt in Shorin Ryu, a style of Karate from the orient, and gave me many lessons outside the Dojo. I did have another son with this man and began the insane cycle of running from the abuse with him to the abusive mother with no mental thought there might be any other option. My parents always answered the police officer’s middle of the night phone call and sometimes drove hours to come get me and their grandchildren. Still, my father and I continued to not speak and my mother continued her ranting and raving.

One night, my husband was arrested and I found out that he was wanted in five states, one state on suspicion of murder. They had found his girlfriend’s body outside the movie theater. Another state wanted him for physically assaulting a police officer. The state we lived in wanted him on a burglary charge and as they read the list I looked around my home in awe to realize everything we owned was stolen property. My real father came, got the stuff, and got him out on a P.R. bond, but my husband couldn’t face jail so we packed up the children and stole off, fugitives, into the night. He could not hold a job so sometimes we ate out after a fast food restaurant had closed for the night and a place to sleep was where ever we found to “safely” lie down for the night.

I finally decided that was not a way of life for my children and was sure if I left this man life would get better. I left with sheer determination to never go back and lived anonymously for the next two years out of fear that he would fulfill his threat to hunt me down.

The next relationship was with a man who tried to help me begin a road of recovery. At the beginning of our relationship, I was in another period of controlled non-drinking due to a third pregnancy. This man was my support system as I made the choice to have an abortion because I thought it my only option to giving my other two children a better life. He had the perception that I had inner strength so was astounded at my behaviors during our relationship when I began drinking and had still less control. I constantly lied to him, cheated on him, nearly died from overdosing, went to jail, detox, put all of us in dangerous positions, and absolutely could not not take a drink. He coaxed me into seeking counsel of a psychiatrist. By this point, I could not go out into public unless I had already experienced the feeling of comfort from that first drink. When I did take that first drink I would be off and running leaving him home with my children while I was off doing whatever it took to get that drink or drug. I worked on many issues in those counseling sessions, using up many tissues, but I was not able to be honest with myself much less anyone else about my drinking. When I felt I was “well” I took myself out of counseling.

Of course, this relationship ended and so I moved onto campus. This man had helped me get into college. My life now consisted of attending classes, taping afternoon classes because I would drink through them, working in the bar, and pretending to be at home being a good parent while I was really out partying until wee hours of the morning. When questioned about this I would lie and come up with better cover up plans and stories because mind kept telling me that my children were safe with so many neighbors around. I could use the money, that should have been spent on a babysitter or taking my children to do things to get the night started until I could coax some man into purchasing my drinks for the rest of the night. Sometimes I even stole money by taking it from the customer and just not paying the bar for the drinks. The kids, my mind told me, would never know because they were asleep after all, right?

Thus far in my personal adventures there had been a few trips to the emergency room after suicide attempts, some jaunts to jail due to a DUI, a rape, loss of contact with family members, many friends tried for treason, and a couple of legal battles as my parents tried to get custody of my two sons. I do not remember what happened, but I had another brief period of control and we all know where that leads in time.

I had been approached by the Mormon missionaries and many good people of this church. During a detox visit I had the laying on of hands method of healing and I became baptized knowing surely this would be the answer. One night a lady member, my next door neighbor and friend, decided she would go to the bar and find herself a man. She would get him to quit drinking and turn him into a fine father and patriarch in the church. I went along to “protect her” and there I met husband number two. After lots of talking and convincing my friend was able to execute her plan. My life on the other hand was once again in the grips of the progressive illness. The man I married was quiet and kind in nature, told me I did not have a problem with alcohol, and I was sure he could teach me how to drink normally. I know now that my great obsession was to control and enjoy my drinking, not to find a God of my understanding to fill the void that always left me feeling alone, empty, and useless.

So what happened was our relationship had a wonderful beginning. We had great times full of laughter and joy. My parents started to let up on trying to control me, my kids began behaving, and his family and friends were always around to join in the merriment. I was sure that this time I had life by the tail but I always still felt empty and alone. Over a considerable period, however, I got worse never better.

After several years of marriage and many adventures, including a couple of visits to the mental ward from suicide attempts, we had a journey to jail resulting from domestic violence. My brother had moved to the same town we lived in and was in AA at the time. When I called him for help he gave me a choice, either I called detox myself and I could be in there for twenty-four hours and he would call them and I would be there for seventy-two. I chose to make the call myself. It was a blizzard outside so it seemed like hours before they got there and they sent a police car. As I was telling the story of how I got to detox this time, the police officer informed me that Colorado law dictates they had to arrest my husband even if I was not willing to press charges. I found myself in jail after my detox stay because his story included me fighting back.

By this time, I was so under weight and puny they were afraid to put me in with the general population so I spent the next couple of days in the holding tank until I was taken to a room while he to another and we had to answer to the judge via a camera. It was the same judge whom married us years earlier. I plead guilty but upon his recommendation changed that to not guilty so that I could have a “fair hearing”. See I had become so smart that I made friends with the lawyers and judges, a method which enabled me to get out of trouble and allowed me to continue my drinking. We were found not guilty by the court of law, of course.

I watched as his family came to pick him up and I stood in the holding cell watching through a small window as he walked out the door with his family to freedom. I had to stay for a bit longer then finally decided to call my new boss to come get me out. When I reached home I wondered whether I would find confrontation or kiss and make up. What I found struck me with horror to the very bone. There stood my husband at the kitchen sink pouring the last bottle of booze down the drain with a few trash bags filled with bottles and cans next to him. This would be the last time I white knuckled it for nearly one year without a drink.

The time came when that insidious insanity of the first drink returned. We were at his sisters’ house and offered a beer. My husband stated that we were not alcoholic because we had gone a year without drinking. I remember thinking to my self, this does not seem to smart, but I drank. Eventually my drinking turned into more detox visits, nights spent in a vehicle, fights, and finally another suicide attempt due to the emptiness I felt from my eldest son leaving home to join the Marine Corp. If my husband had not come in the room when he did I would have shot myself, my youngest son and his friend in the very next room playing on the computer. Still the next morning I wanted to die and as he left for work I began cutting my wrists.

I put myself in counseling again. The counselor I had years before came out of semi-retirement when he read the case history. He knew it had to be me and he was right. I had been in counseling for eight weeks and was learning that I did not have to respond to my husband the way I had been, that it might be alright for me to make my own decisions and perhaps let up on myself a little with trying to make things at home so perfect. Still, I did not take a look at my drinking. But my husband had already had enough and the fateful day came when he asked for a divorce.

My emotions went wild and my mind raced. For an entire weekend I drank and despaired. Drinking and driving aimlessly with my youngest son in the car, I finally ended up at his relatives for the night. My life I was sure was over and instead sanity was restored. As I sat at work on Monday morning I wanted to drink to quiet my nerves as it had been a couple of hours and that morning drink had just not been enough. Suddenly a thought came that told me I was alcoholic and I had a burning hole in my heart. I had no idea what it meant to be alcoholic but I seemed to intuitively know what to do. I picked up the phone and called one of you. The man I called had pumped my gas every week so I had not forgotten his face from the meetings I had visited. I said I need a sponsor to which he replied “So you’re serious this time” and my answer was yes. My life is has been different ever since.

A few lines from a song by Savage Garden express my personal adventures before A.A. clearly for me. “Her mother never loved her much, and daddy never keeps in touch, that’s why she shies away from human emotion. She’s saying love is like a barren place and reaching out for human faith is like a journey I just don’t have a map for.” Today I have a map and I am learning how to reach out for human faith by first having faith of my own.

I have recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body but I am not cured from alcoholism. The Big Book tells me that what I really have is a daily reprieve contingent upon the maintenance of my spiritual condition. What this means is that I had to get down to causes and conditions, take a look at the symptoms, and discover the outward manifestation of my inner pain. None of this could be done with first having found a God of my understanding.

When I got to the rooms of alcoholics anonymous, this time, the steps and guidance of truly wonderful people in the program I began working these steps as willing as the dying can be. I knew I was 100% powerless over alcohol from day one, but if I had stopped with that I would have missed the miracle.

I spent many months in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous crying over the man who left me and feeling victimized by all the events that were occurring in my life. I heard kind loving things like “get off the cross, we need the wood”, “there are no victims, only volunteers”, and my personal favorite “if someone is whining and feeling like a doormat, she is not working her program”. They even called me the step two poster child and reminded me constantly that I just needed to remember to breathe.

Steps two and three tell me that, when I can believe and surrender, a power greater than myself will restore me to sanity. To me this means that when I tap that unsuspected inner resource the book talks about it appendix II, that I am able to let go of ego and ask for help, ask to have my needs met, cry when I feel like crying, laugh when I feel like laughing, and love when I feel love. With that power I will again have a sense of value, a rebirth of my spirit, and begin to live instead of manage in this life.

I couldn’t grasp the unmanageable part of step one until I met my third sponsor. There was and still is a conduit between her, me, and a God of my understanding. After going through the last column of the fourth step and taking the fifth step with her, I began to see the nature of my illness, the futility of my attitude and actions, and just how much of my moral fiber I had given to alcoholism. I began to find a new employer for my life; I uncovered fears, self doubt, and a sense of inadequacy that dictated my decisions and behaviors.

In six I thought hard and digested all I had learned so far. In the Book it says take one hour alone, but my sponsor had said she would call me so I waited for the call. She had forgotten so I stayed in this step for about one week and became acutely aware of self. My mind became clogged with thoughts of how much I used the word I, how much I thought about me, and how much I really thought negatively of me.

In seven I humbly asked God to take away all the behaviors that made me ineffective to be of maximum service to him and others. Behaviors that manifested in the insanity of resentment and causing harm to myself and other people. Those defect of character that had caused me terrible consequences for years. Today I know that I am not responsible for the first thought but I am responsible for the action that follows.

In steps eight and nine, I made a list and began making restitutions than have set me free. The first one was to my second ex-husband. I needed to make amends for things like expecting him to want to live with me when I did not want to live with myself and being so dependant upon him for my emotional securities that I had actually stolen his. In a small town I feared repercussions from his new girlfriend and lots of gossip but absolutely nothing happened, good or bad. Fear melted away and I began to have a new attitude and out look upon life. I feverishly set out to make my amends to all those I had harmed.

The second amends was to the man that owned the bar I had worked in and to whom I had stolen money from. I had come up with a dollar figure to repay him. I had to admit to him, in person, that I had taken the money and then tell him I would repay him over a period of time. He did not throw me in jail so I was sure this honesty thing really worked and continued on with the amend making where ever possible.

I was not able to make direct amends to my mother as she had passed away in my first year of sobriety so these are made indirectly to the spirit of the universe.

I wrote a lot of my fourth step about her while I sat beside her hospital bed taking care of her and watching her die. In the beginning, I did not want to go be of help, but was assured by the group that if I wanted sobriety I had to be willing to go to any length. Eventually, I wanted to go and be there with and for her. I wanted to say I was sorry so many times but the words did not come. I believe this was God working in and through me as I found out there were many things I did not owe amends for.

Early in my sobriety, I had attended a convention and the woman, Sharon B., told my story. I did not have the courage to go to the front of the auditorium to thank her so a nice gentleman from our group was kind enough to let her know. This woman walked away from that crowd to come and talk to me. She was the person God sent to help clean up some of the wreckage of the past with my father.

Sharon’s story consisted of making amends financial and emotional with her father. I did not have the courage to make direct amends to my father. Sharon and I emailed for almost a year before I finally decided to mail the amends letter I had written and guarded for so many months. During that time, my father had been injured when he rolled a four wheeler at work. I watched his health decline and it was so soon after my mother’s death that I was still so raw and vulnerable. God had sent my little brother to help this time and I was grateful as I am sure I could not have watched another parent die without his help and support.

We had been doing some things together and I even changed a fuel pump for him as he was physically unable to do so. One day I asked him why it was so difficult for him to spend much time with me and so hard for him to look at me. As tears welled up in his eyes he said “Sweetheart, you remind me so much of your mother and she was the most beautiful woman in the world until the day you were born. I just want you to be happy.” That is the day I mailed the letter and then I took the next day off work, a great feat for a workaholic, to go to his surgery with him and as support for my youngest brother. My father passed away the very next day. An important lesson learned is that life is short. Don’t wait to long to make your amends because tomorrow might just be too late.

Ten and eleven save my butt on a daily basis. They help me maintain my spiritual condition so I can have a daily reprieve from my alcoholism. As I said, there is no cure for my alcoholism but these two steps help sustain the necessary personal exertion to keep that personality change which gave me the new outlook and attitude and stay in recovery from that seemingly hopeless state of mind and body.

But step twelve is where I get to really grow. Here are Twelve Qualities I believe I was sponsored by and I try to use when sponsoring others.

1. I will not help you to stay and wallow in limbo.

2. I will help you to grow, to become more productive, by your definition.

3. I will help you become more autonomous, more loving of yourself, more excited, less sensitive, freer to become the authority for your own living.

4. I can not give you dreams or "fix you up" simply because I can not.

5. I can not give you growth, or grow for you. You must grow for yourself by facing reality, grim as it may be at times.

6. I can not take away your loneliness or your pain.

7. I can not sense your world for you, evaluate your goals for you, and tell you what is best for your world; because you have your own world in which you must live.

8. I can not convince you of the necessity to make the vital decision of choosing the frightening uncertainty of growing over the safe misery of remaining static.

9. I want to be with you and know you as a rich and growing friend; yet I can not get close to you when you choose not to grow.

10. When I begin to care for you out of pity or when I begin to lose faith in you, then I am inhibiting both for you and for me.

11. You must know and understand my help is conditional. I will be with you and "hang in there" with you so long as I continue to get even the slightest hint that you are still trying to grow.

12. If you can accept this, then perhaps we can help each other to become what God meant us to be, mature adults, leaving childishness forever to the little children of the world.

I believe unconditional love exists in the 4th dimension and beyond but I know I still have a lot of work in this 3rd dimensional drama of life. I am grateful for the conditions in my life which aide my spiritual growth because I had a spiritual awakening that occurred as a result of working these simple 12 steps. I know I did not become perfect but I love the blessons today because I believe I am of the “educational” variety. By allowing myself to be vulnerable I am blessed with the experiences that show me humans are fallible but it is pointless to be hurt by or angry with others who, like myself, might be spiritually sick. I can give my power away and sometimes still do, but in this state of mind the world and the people in it actually have the power to kill. I can allow causes and conditions to replay those old movies of being an ugly worthless actress of drama or I can trust in God, work some steps, and work with others. This allows God to grant me serenity so my mind clears and I can begin to consciously see my part, pray for the courage to change my attitude, and take the action necessary for God to work in and through me to become a spirit of love.

Because of Alcoholics Anonymous and the fellowship you people offer I got to be a daughter for the last nine months of my mother’s life and the last two of my father’s. My brothers and I are very close knit, my children and I have wonderful relationships, I get to have my grandchildren in my life, I have friends in my life, and I am learning to be a worker among workers. Relationships are so important to me because that is all I get to take with me when I go.

Alcoholics Anonymous has given me a God of my understanding, which is continually growing. This gives me the power, through our wonderful fellowship, to begin living up to my name and ideals for a spiritual life. I believe God intended for me to be strong, intelligent, humble, kind, friendly, and compassionate. I could not align my will with God’s will in the bottle but with God’s power, the fellowship in these rooms, and the program of Alcoholics Anonymous I am able to reach out for human faith and I can, when spiritually fit, cease fighting anyone or anything, even alcohol.

I find, for me, that I need to do these steps when I become aware of my egoism and fear as more becomes revealed. I do not believe I have lost all my egoism and fear from telling someone all my life story due to the selective amnesia alcohol bestowed upon me. I want to always remain teachable so that I may one day learn enough of humility, fearlessness, and honesty to be of maximum service to God and my fellows.

Alcohol removes my perception of reality, AA brings me to reality.

What a blessing it has been to trudge this road of happy destiny with so many winners. If you haven’t read the book I urge you to read it, and if you have read the book, I suggest you study it. The main purpose of this basic text is to show other’s precisely how we have recovered. I am grateful to know what I know today so I can do better. I realize I know but only a little so I think I will keep coming back and I pray each and everyone of you do too.