Hello Family,

My name is Elisa (aka) Eagle Woman and I’m powerless over alcohol! 

My sobriety date is December 13, 1996,

My home group is the “Came to Believe”  (Step Meeting) and my sponsor is Tom D & Kathy A..  I tell you that for a couple of reasons:  1. is so that you know I did and am doing what was suggested for my recovery and 2.  Because my 1st sponsor told me to!  I found it to be to my benefit to listen to my sponsor!!!

      I remember at the age of 5 or 6 sitting on the side of my bed crying and saying I never want to grow up.  Now I have no idea what brought that on…that’s just to say how long I have been miserable and how long (even though I didn’t know it) I hated myself.  I knew I hated being alive and that my life was terrible.  When I was 10 my oldest brother Michael was killed doing a paint job on the top of a 30 story building and hit an electrical wire and was killed instantly and thrown from that building.  When my mother told my other brother and myself about Michael being dead, I was clueless!  I went in my room and proceeded to practice on my flute.  My mother through my door open and said "Elisa, your brother is dead, this is no time to play music."  I sat on the side of the bed and cried wondering what I WAS suppost to be doing.  I had no idea about death at that point.  Now that was the real beginning of the end for me.  Just prior to that my mother married this navy/Nazi stepfather.  God I hated him mainly because he was responsible for us loosing Belle, the lady that took care of me and my other brothers since I was 2 months old.   So I lost 2 of the most important people in my life and gained a jerk that I hated.

     I was also one of those kids that kids loved to pick on and beat up everyday.  I spent 9 years running and hiding.  I remember my mother getting ready for work and she was telling me to go out and play.  When I told her I couldn't because there were kids out there that wanted to beat me up she told me "Elisa, I don't care...Go out side and stand up for yourself."  Well I did and like I told her, I got beat up.  when I went crying to her she said "I don't have time for this" and walked out the door for work.  Now don't get me wrong...My mother raised 3 kids by her self with no help but with the baby sitter (momma #2) and she worked 6 days a week.  She did real good by us, but that isn't what a kid see's when at that age and looking for comfort.  I also had a police man terrorize me, so much so that I wet my pants sitting in the back seat of his car.

     Now, I'm not telling you all this to feel sorry for me.  I'm sharing with you the thought process of a potential drunk!  I learned through all that...I can't go to the police like they said I could. I can't go to mom because she is busy with her life and mine isn't as important as hers or anyone else's for that matter.  And after the death of my oldest brother I couldn't buy attention from my family because they were too busy protecting my other brother.  All and all I learned that that old phrase "God helps those who help themselves" to be very true and boy did I help myself!

     I went to a cousins wedding I have never met in PA and at the reception they were giving little slices of cake to the women that danced with the groom and little glasses with some brown liquid in it to the guy's that danced with the bride (cousin)  Now, my thoughts....I can get cake any time!  I want to know what is in that glass!  I told my father I was going to go dance with my cousin & introduce myself to HER.  I didn't care about meeting her, I wanted what was in that glass because you guy's made that stuff look GOOOOOOD!!!  I watched how you would pick it up and just throw it back and when it was my turn to get my glass they looked over at my father and he just shrugged his shoulders and they let me have it.  I did exactly what you guy's did...picked it up and threw it back.  You would think that a 10 year old child would choke and gag with slamming liquor but no not this 10 year old.  I LOVED IT!!!!  I loved the taste, the smell, the way it burned going down and I wanted more!  They let me have it too, they thought it was cute to see a 10 year old sloshed.  I will tell you that all the stuff I said I liked about it wasn't what I found I loved most about it.  I loved what it did to me!!!!  It made me happy, joyous and free!  Finally I fit in!!!  Now I do have courage to stand up for myself. (But still didn't do for years to come)  So as of that first drink my life as I knew it changed dramatically!

     I went from scaredy cat to the social B**** next door.  Instead of being afraid, I was feared!  I hooked up with some cool kids and we did some stupid things.  From vandalizing to theft to causing physical pain to anyone in my way.  No I was in charge of my life and no one will ever hurt me again! 

     How wrong that thinking turned out!!!  I was a drop out at school, because it didn't make much since to keep repeating the 11th grade.  I was going on my 3rd year of 11th grade and I just said to heck with this.  I couldn't keep a looser boyfriend that I was living with and I couldn't keep a job at "Burger King." (fast food)  Ended up running back home to mommy and I had a real hard time getting back in the door this time.  My stepfather told me that I wasn't going to just hit on my rear and do nothing.  That I was going to either go back to school at the age of 20 or get a job.  Well I went back to all year day and night school and I graduated.  Everyone was so proud and I got all kinds of attention and that was the point (I told you I could do it).  I didn't once look at it as an opportunity to better myself.

     Anyway, I couldn't hold a job, got married to someone who was just as sick as I was and of course that didn't work out.  Then I took up with someone, just for my ego to say see someone does want me.  I wouldn't take up with that person today because I have respect for myself today, I didn't then.  I felt as long as someone cared about me I would be fine.  I didn't want just me!!!!  I hated me and I was growing up like I said I didn't want to!!!!  All my attempts at doing stupid things hoping it would kill me didn't work.  I can't remember a time where I wanted to live until sobriety.  Then I met my next husband, he was a good man with 3 kids & 2 ex-wife's.  He worked hard and he is the one that we had the 3 bedroom rambler on 2 lots of property, hand made white picket fence around the whole thing and kids and dog playing in the front yard.  THE AMERICAN DREAM COME TRUE!   We quite drinking and drugging so we could be responsible parents and set a good example.  Well I didn't know it at the time but I learned in sobriety that that is what we call being a dry drunk!  For this alcoholic, being a dry drunk is worse than being a wet one!!!!  I caused most of my damage dry then I did wet.  I turned in to this anal crazy person that could not be pleased and could not deal with life on life's terms because people just pissed me off not doing what I think was common since.  I was yelling at the kids for stupid stuff, and always angry with my husband.  It just wasn't healthy in that house that looked great from the outside but inside was full of misery just like me!  Needless to say that husband found someone else, got her pregnant and left me.   "Booo Hooo Poor Me"  I grabbed hold of my 1st love (liquor) and it made it all better or at least tolerable.  I ended up loosing everything....right down to my dog "Princess".  I tried that geographical cure, and that didn't work. 

     Now by this time I had learned to care very much for my step father.  He ended up giving the little girl in me a daddy and guy's that is a big deal to little girls not just to me.  I ended up coming home because my stepfather was dying from cancer.  I don't know how other than the fact that the God of my understanding then directed me to make things write with him before it was too late!  I by the grace of God was able to tell him how sorry I was for all the anguish and pain I had caused him and the family and I was able to make peace with him.  "THANK YOU FATHER"

     I proceeded to loose jobs because of my drinking.  I met another man I really fell head over heals for and we had so much fun together.  He served in Nam and we shared our pains and everything with.  I could hold my own with him, drink for drink and we ended up getting serious.  We had plans to get married and fear stopped that 3 times.

     I lost that last job and was fighting with the greatest thing that ever happened to me.  I went to NC to visit some friends (Heavy Drinkers + other stuff) and the worst thing that could ever happen to an alcoholic happened to me.

Alcohol stopped working!!!!  I drank and used for 21 hours and NOTHING happened!!!  I was stone cold sober and tired from trying and now I'm pissed!!!!  Men aren't working, jobs don't work, God hates me and put me on this earth to live a miserable existence and now my greatest love has abandon me too!!!!  I got back home on Sunday evening, and by Thursday night 12/12/96 I had finally hit that jumping off spot.  Drunk and in a black out I left the last bar to go get something to eat and I made it 9.10th of a mile and careened across a four lane highway, through the median, up over a curb and in a ditch.  All I remember was a lot of bouncing around, coming to an abrupt stop and trying to figure out why my truck wont start.  Then the arresting officer slamming me up against my truck, putting these silver bracelets on me and putting me in the cop car.  He didn't take me to jail, he took me to the hospital.

nothing was wrong with me but a little cut in the palm of my hand.  The surrender came when I heard him tell the nurse "I brought her here for mental evaluation...because she said something about wanting to die"  The wanting to die wasn't the phrase that got my attention because that was the point and has been the point since I was 5 years old!  The mental evaluation part is what hit me like a Big Book on the head!  Now I know why my life sucks!!!!  There's something wrong with me!!!!  When my mother showed up in that hospital ER all I could say with tears streaming was "I'm sorry, I'm sorry" and my greatest enabler told me "It's ok honey we'll get through this one too" and I new better.  I told her that something was wrong with me and it's something that mommy can't fix!  I don't know if it can be and all I really want to do now is die and I know that's not going to happen and I can't bear the thought of another day on the top side of the dirt!!!!!  I was finally beaten down emotionally, physically and spiritually!  I got out of there because I'm a good liar and I took there suggestion and looked up an alcohol prevention program here and I made that infamous phone call to AA and found out where a meeting was.  Now I was doing this for the same reason that I went back to high school.  It wasn't to get sober and live happy, joyous and free!  I went and I listened and I worked my program (which didn't work) and I kept coming back.  I ended up getting a real sponsor, working THE program out of the Big Book and our 12 & 12 the way its outlined. and I started to change and I realized that the common denominator in all the horrible things in my life was "ME".  You all taught me how to (when I'm willing) take me out of the picture and put God in it and other sufferers and even the normal earthlings.  After working the steps in a written form and was trying to work this program of AA on the street I ended up remembering a suppressed memory of physical and sexual abuse when I was about 4 years old.  I was thrown for a loop with that one!!!!  I ran to my spiritual advisor and cried and God I thought I was going to die.  He helped me apply the program to it and I was able to make an amends to this person for the way I treated her.  Even though I didn't remember why I was mean & hateful to her I still had to make that right and face her as an adult with respect for myself and who I am trying to be today.  My spiritual advisor told me something that really helped make this happen and he said:  When we are born we have a clear bubble around us and with every person we meet they leave a finger print of who they are on us, sometimes it's good and sometimes it's not so good like in this case.  What I needed to remember was, I had the tools for living and she didn't.  And that someone had taught that behavior to her and she passed it on.  I had a way to deal with the emotions of it but she didn't.  That taught me compaction for another human being.  I could just imagine how miserable her life must be with those feeling and not having a way to be free of them like I could.  I was also grateful for all the question that memory answered as to my reaction to things and situations.  It was a release that booze NEVER gave me!!!!  I am at peace with her and with who I am and for what I am and where I'm going.   She no longer lives in my head rent free and I am 100 % free of her and the pain!  I have a beautiful son that tries his very best to make me insane, and what he doesn't know is I have been there and can still go there better than he knows. :-)   I do not regret my past nor do I wish to shut the door on it.  I look at my past as a road map of where not to go anymore and I let my Father do the driving, because he knows were we are going and he doesn't even need a map.  He has planned this trip since before he created me!  Now all I have to do is bring the 12 spiritual principles, a shovel and the willingness to get out of the way.  To hold on to the faith that I know works, when I work it!   I use to think that the "Promises" were just fairy tale crap and now by the grace of God, my Father I know better!  I do have "The Promises" in my life one day at a time.  I don't work this program perfectly, I still cause pain, and I still act out on self.  The difference today is I recognize it and I know if I want that peace back what I have to do to get it.  Today I don't hate life and everything and everyone in it!  Today I don't want to die and I haven't smashed any mirrors in almost 7 years.  Today I like and respect you, Father and myself!  (When I'm working THE program). Today I also have a conscience that tells me I need to take my inventory and to put THE program into ACTION!

I thank Father, and the fellowship for showing me a much better way of life than I could have ever have done on my own!!!!  Without you there is just me and that is a sad place to be!!!!

 

Your Sister Through God & Service,

Elisa (aka) Eagle Woman

 

Father gave me a gift called "Life!"

My gift to him is what I do with it!